THE MACLEAN BOOKS ARE AVAILABLE IN LIMITED NUMBERS, INCLUDING COLLECTIBLE EDITIONS.
For pricing and availability:
Multiple copies for staff rides and other purposes are available at discount.
The Thirtymile Fire
A riveting account of the deadly Thirtymile fire and the controversy and recriminations that raged in its aftermath, from our premier chronicler of wildfires, John N. Maclean, and those who fight them.
The Thirtymile fire in the remote North Cascade range near the Canadian border in Washington began as a simple mop-up operation. In a few hours, a series of catastrophic errors led to the entrapment and deaths of four members of the fire crew--two teen-age girls and two young men. Each had brought order and meaning to their lives by joining the fire world. Then the very flames they pursued turned on them, extinguishing their lives. When the victims were blamed for their own deaths, the charge brought a storm of controversy that undermined the firefighting community.
Continuing a tradition established in his previous books, and by his father Norman's Young Men and Fire, John N. Maclean serves as an unflinching guide to the rogue fire's unexpected violence--which is almost matched by the passions released by the official verdict of the blaze. Weaving together the astonishing stories told by the witnesses, the victims' family members, and the official reports, Maclean produces a dramatic narrative of a catastrophe that has changed the way fire is fought. More than anything, it is a story of humanity at risk when wildfire, ancient and unpredictable, breaks loose
Praise for The Thirtymile Fire
“Maclean mostly keeps his opinions to himself, offering a narrative that comprehends many conflicting viewpoints. A richly descriptive chronicle of disaster from an expert on the subject.”
“Maclean takes us inside the fire and puts us beside the men and women trying to tame it. Ultimately, it’s a tragic story — some members of the firefighting crew died — but it’s also an exciting and educational one. Maclean teaches us plenty about how forest fires behave and about the people who risk their lives to fight them.”
“Author John N. Maclean has become the Bob Woodward of forest fires, the nation’s chief chronicler of the misjudgments, equipment failures, and accumulating gaffes that lead to tragedy on the fireline...
Maclean diligently recounts the national repercussions of the blaze, which led to congressional hearings on fire safety, but his real interest is in wildfires themselves and those who volunteer to fight them.
’They sign up,’ he writes, ‘for the adrenaline rush, for tuition money, for a break from spouses, and for the simple joy of being outside from the dawn of one day to the next.’ By the end of Maclean’s gripping account we know these unique types of people well enough to mourn them.”
“The sad thing is that there still have to be books like this, books that examine tragedies that occur in the fighting of forest fires. But it is also a cause for gratitude that there are careful chroniclers like John N. Maclean of Montana, who was willing to spend five years in painstaking research to understand, in this important and illuminating book, why four young firefighters (two women, two men) perished in 2001 during a rogue wildfire in the rugged North Cascades of this state. What makes this fire tragedy book all the more fascinating is its distinct parallels to Young Men and Fire, the classic account of the 1949 Mann Gulch Fire in Montana written by Norman Maclean, the author’s late father.”