The Big Burn

Timothy Egan won the National Book Award for The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl written in 2005. His nonfiction narratives are interesting and they bring the history of our American heritage up front and close. Egan's 2009 nonfiction story, The Big Burn,  is about how Gifford Pinchot was first appointed 'confidential forest agent; a spy with a green eye' by President McKinley. Originally, just prior to leaving office, President Cleveland had used an act passed 1891 to put aside over  twenty-one million acres of forest reserves on February 22, 1897. However, President McKinley suspended Cleveland's order, and it was not until Teddy Roosevelt became President, after McKinley was assassinated, that Pinchot was given the power to create the Forest Service and hire forest rangers to man the National Parks. Initially, Congress gave little support, but it was the largest forest fire in American history that hit the Bitterroots Mountains of Montana and Idaho in 1910, that  created the need for an actual working Forest Service. Read this story to understand the personalities of the men and women who were active players, in this precious time in American History, in creating the National Parks. It is these parks that many Americans now take for granted, with some even proposing that they be converted back to private ownership. This story made me realize the frustrating work and the resolve required of these early forest rangers to make their dreams come true. This is a fascinating story, told well by a great writer of Natural History, that mixes the human interest story with the natural setting.