The Big Burn

When Kathleen Holt at Oregon Humanities asked me to review a new book for the organization's Fall/Winter magazine—the issue's theme, she told me, would be Away—one title immediately came to mind.

The Big Burn tells the story of a hundred-years-ago wildfire that consumed three million acres of PNW forest in only three days. Author Timothy Egan structures the book around two principal figures, Teddy Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot.

My interest was sparked as much by Egan's track record, which includes a National Book Award for The Worst Hard Time, as his focus here on Pinchot. How many times have I ventured out from Portland to hike in the forest that bears Pinchot's name? Those day trips had proved so restorative, in fact, that when a canvasser showed up at my door after one of my earliest excursions, I signed up as a dues paying member of the Gifford Pinchot National Task Force, which (quoting from its web site) "supports the biological diversity and communities of the Northwest through conservation and restoration of forests, rivers, fish, and wildlife."

But years after writing that first check, I still didn't know who Gifford Pinchot was. Egan's book offers an engaging introduction—and much more.