Current Books

ON WILDLAND FIRE

John Maclean, author of two previous award-winning books on disastrous wildfires, has written a third – this one chronicling the Thirtymile Fire that killed four firefighters in 2001 in northeast Washington. The fire, which initially appeared to be a quick suppression effort with a bit of mop-up, spiraled out of control into a disaster fire that burned over 9,000 acres. Four young firefighters were killed, several others were injured, and another was severely burned but managed to survive. Maclean is both a journalist and a gifted storyteller; he spent much of his 30-year career in Washington, D.C., as a Chicago Tribune correspondent covering national and international news. But for a man whose early career was in the Midwest and the nation's capital, Maclean's still a Western boy, linked by his family's ties to Montana, where he spent much of his youth.