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Stephen J. Pyne is to fire what Theodore White was to American politics, an insider who can explain how his subject works and affects our lives... In Fire on the Rim Pyne has compressed accounts of the 15 summers he spent as an eager firefighter [on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon]. He begins as a single man, enjoying the heady freedom of his summertime release from college, and ends when he is married and a father, a veteran fighting his last gritty battle against the flames before regretfully packing up like a successful professional athlete who has stayed two or three seasons too long... This book, full of human detail, brings us to the front lines, and we learn what fires mean to the fire-crew foreman (an empire to rule over, if only for a summer) and to the individual firefighter (not the least is plenty of overtime if the struggle against a minor blaze can be stretched out)... The author reminds us of the natural rhythms of these vast wild preserves that thwart any of man's efforts to shape them. New York Times Book Review In this lively account of one [fire] season, Pyne introduces us to the tightly knit world of a fire crew, to the complex geography of the North Rim, to the technique and changing philosophy of fire management. Publishers Weekly . Forest fires are both the subject and the main characters in this mesmerizing account by a MacArthur Prize-winning professor who spent 15 summers as a 'Longshot' firefighter. The result is a heady combination of poetic prose, analytic language (trees are 'large fuels'), and ecological polemic directed at the bureaucratic infighting that afflicts the two great administrators of the nation's wilderness-the Park Service and the National Forest Service... This rewarding book should add a 'large fuel' of its own to the debate over our endangered wilderness. - Kirkus

"""Stephen J. Pyne is to fire what Theodore White was to American politics, an insider who can explain how his subject works and affects our lives. . . . In Fire on the Rim Pyne has compressed accounts of the 15 summers he spent as an eager firefighter [on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon]. He begins as a single man, enjoying the heady freedom of his summertime release from college, and ends when he is married and a father, a veteran fighting his last gritty battle against the flames before regretfully packing up like a successful professional athlete who has stayed two or three seasons too long. . . . This book, full of human detail, brings us to the front lines, and we learn what fires mean to the fire—crew foreman (an empire to rule over, if only for a summer) and to the individual firefighter (not the least is plenty of overtime if the struggle against a minor blaze can be stretched out). . . . The author reminds us of the natural rhythms of these vast wild preserves that thwart any of man’s efforts to shape them."" * New York Times Book Review * “Forest fires are both the subject and the main characters in this mesmerizing account by a MacArthur Prize—winning professor who spent 15 summers as a ‘Longshot’ firefighter. The result is a heady combination of poetic prose, analytic language (trees are ‘large fuels’), and ecological polemic directed at the bureaucratic infighting that afflicts the two great administrators of the nation’s wilderness—the Park Service and the National Forest Service. . . . This rewarding book should add a ‘large fuel’ of its own to the debate over our endangered wilderness. * Kirkus *"

Forest fires are both the subject and the main characters in this mesmerizing account by a MacArthur Prize-winning professor who spent 15 summers as a Longshot firefighter. The result is a heady combination of poetic prose, analytic language (trees are large fuels ), and ecological polemic directed at the bureaucratic infighting that afflicts the two great administrators of the nation's wilderness - the Park Service, for whom Pyne worked, and the National Forest. Pyne isn't out to tell heroic stories here. He captures the tedium that drives the Longshots and the SWFFs (Hopi and Navajo fire crews) to pray for smoke on the Grand Canyon's wild North Rim - smoke means fire, and fire means overtime pay, plus excitement. The descriptive passages that bring the reader up to speed on the nature of fire and park bureaucracy echo the tedium; these are punctuated by short, dramatic scenes of the crews chasing after reported fires. In two- and four-man teams, the Longshots plunge into the wilderness, racing to beat the National Forest crews; wearing rubber waterbladders, chain-saws, and other tools, dining off C-rations, they drive battered pickups as far as roads will allow, then dive into the brash and canyonland. Often they can't find the fire, or it's a false alarm. At other times, two men will single-handedly tame a potential holocaust with the elan of professional athletes. Pyne's outrage smoulders at the death-by-bureaucratic-fiat of any kind of intelligently organized firefighting program. The Park Service in particular comes off poorly - politicized, mismanaged by desk warriors so obsessed with their public image that they will halt a preventative burn program because it's too smoky and alarms the tourists. This dense but rewarding book should add a large fuel of its own to the debate over our endangered wilderness. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

Stephen J. Pyne is a professor in the Biology and Society Program at Arizona State Universty. He is the author of many books, including Year of the Fires: The Story of the Great Fires of 1910 and Fire on the Rim: A Firefighter's Season at the Grand Canyon. Fire: A Brief History is the sixth volume in Pyne's Cycle of Fire, which also includes Vestal Fire, World Fire, Burning Bush, The Ice and Fire in America.

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