A detailed account of the fight to control the fires that raged through Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks in 1988 focuses on the role of environmentalists in the effort to control the blazes.
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Kirkus Reviews
With one eye cocked for high drama, the other for any hint of bureaucratic bungling, Morrison (a reporter for Insight magazine) tells in fascinating detail the story of Yellowstone's 1988 firestorm. The summer of 1988 was a mean fire season. Big-time blazes were fought all across the country, but it was Yellowstone's million-acre incineration that caught the public's eye. Some viewed the conflagration as one of nature's great events and hailed the park's ``natural burn'' policy as a sensible response to nature's mysterious, sometimes scary, ways. But others disagreed, finding that policy to be a bone-headed approach without ecological merit or economic common sense. Morrison doesn't choose sides in this debate; he's more interested in the various snafus, mixed signals, reversals, and downright flimflammery that marked the handling of the fires. Confusion and cross-purpose reigned: The mission of the Forest Service clashed with that of the Park Service; there were manifold, antagonistic, uncoordinated levels of command; from the beginning, communication difficulties between the command structures, the press, and the public were evident; and firefighters had to contend with dwindling resources in the face of increased fire severity. Engaging as these facts may be, though, the real excitement of Morrison's report lies in his profiles of the fires--mischievous, multiple-personality characters full of nasty surprises. From the fires' first lazy hours right through the white-knuckle days of August when the flames threatened gateway communities, the author serves up a thrilling, blow-by-blow account of the wildfire. A suspenseful confrontation between a roaring inferno and an elephantine bureaucracy, in which everyone gets burned. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Twenty years on, a sequel is needed,
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Fire in Paradise: The Yellowstone Fires and the Politics of Environmentalism (Hardcover)
Well-written account of the Yellowstone experience, but it could have been expanded to include actions of Non-Government Organizations (Sierra Club, etal) at the time on the same blow-by-blow basis. A single short comment at the end of the book suggests they sat it out, en masse.
One nit to pick: an acre is an area, a width a linear measurement--fires do not get "acres wide". The book was written a couple of years after the fire. Now, 20 years later, Mr Morrison could do a public service with a sequel that explores what actions have been taken at any level to better manage a repeat performance. I'd buy it.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
