"Tending Fire: Coping with America's Wildland Fires" by Stephen J. Pyne.

Tending Fire; Coping with America's Wildland Fires by Stephen J. Pyne.

$25 cloth. Shearwater Books/Island Press. 2004.

In a review of Stephen Pyne's Smokechasing (Winter 2004), I called it "the most important" of his previous 15 books. I was wrong. This preeminent authority on the history and ecology of fire has bested himself with this most recent book. Synthesizing decades of study and experience, Pyne's goal is to answer critics who have urged him to address policy issues explicitly and to "unpack my dense historical narratives into a leaner text ..." He does just that, with brilliance, brevity, and bold proposals for reforming fire management in the United States.

The central thesis of Pyne's analysis is that America's attempts to craft effective policies to solve the wildland fire problem will remain a simplistic "story about good and bad science, right and wrong politics, clever and clumsy policies" until we see fire as a matter of "cultural significance.... intrinsically woven into the fabric of American life and landscape ..."

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Pyne sets forth several narrative histories of fire management programs and how they have failed. Much of the blame is laid at the feet of foresters and the institutions they founded, such as the U.S. Forest Service, which he describes as "disintegrating, devolving" and beset by "bureaucratic sclerosis." He examines four traditional options for fire management that have been employed in the past--Let Burn, Suppress, Prescribe Burn, and Change Combustibility (manipulating fuels).

The heart of Pyne's thoughtful analysis, however, is not simply to explain why these policies failed in the past, but rather to focus on each's future prospects as part of an integrated fire policy based on the science of fire ecology and the social and cultural realities of fire in modern America. In conclusion he offers several scenarios for the future, putting wildland fire management policy in this broader historical and cultural context and arguing persuasively that "fire management is fundamental to our obligations as environmental stewards and is an obligation of civil society to its members and the future."

This book will challenge and enlighten anyone concerned about wildland fires. Pyne clearly reminds us all that, as H.L. Mencken once said, "for every problem there is a solution--neat, simple, and wrong."