Tending Fire: Coping with America's Wildland Fires.

TENDING FIRE: Coping with America's Wildland Fires STEPHEN J. PYNE 

In 2003, California suffered one of its most devastating natural disasters. It wasn't an earthquake but an enormous fire that burned more than 740,000 acres, leveled 3,000 buildings, and killed 22 people. Fire researcher Pyne uses this conflagration and others to examine the relationships among fire, fire policy, and how people care for the environment. Thus dividing his topic into three parts, Pyne first examines past wildfires' effects on people and how various government programs, especially in the United States, have attempted to deal with fire threats. Second, he details how western expansion and industrialization in the United States created fire-prone public lands. Third, he describes the most common methods by which authorities have dealt with wildfires: let them burn, try to suppress them, or prevent them through prescribed burns and the clearing of combustible vegetation. The choice among these approaches is often complicated by the conflicting interests and opinions of scientists, environmentalists, and government officials. Pyne reminds his readers that fires are an ancient problem, not one suddenly made important by media images of homeowners protecting their properties with garden hoses. The author makes it clear that "little of human life escapes fire's touch," so the public and its leaders need new and imaginative ways of dealing with this threat. Shearwater Bks., 2004, 256 p., b&w illus., hardcover, $25.00.