品牌：
基本信息
·出版社：Henry Holt & Company; 1st edition
·页码：256 页码
·出版日：2003年
·ISBN：9780805072129
·条码：9780805072129
·装帧：精装
内容简介
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In 2002, more than seven million acres were burned at a fire-fighting cost of over a billion dollars. Are wilderness fires now a tragic and enduring feature of the American landscape? John N. Maclean, author of the acclaimed Fire on the Mountain, offers a view from the front lines, combining action-packed storytelling with moving insights about firefighters and informed analysis of firefighting strategy past and present. Beginning with a riveting account of the worst case of arson in wildfire history, the 1953 Rattlesnake Fire in Mendocino National Forest, which claimed the lives of fifteen firefighters, Maclean explains the mysterious dynamics of fire, and the courage and techniques required to combat it. One such mystery underlines the life- threatening 1999 Sadler Fire in Nevada when a line of flames suddenly blew up, trapping six firefighters mistakenly placed in harm's way. For the final story Maclean returns to Mann Gulch, the site of his father's classic Young Men and Fire, to interview the last survivor of the worst disaster in the history of smoke jumping. From it we understand why fatal fires burn for generations. Offering a prescient view of the inevitable conflict between people, property, and nature, Fire and Ashes presents a riveting and emotional story, one that in many ways John Maclean was destined to tell.
作者简介
John N. Maclean's Fire on the Mountain was the MPBA bes nonfiction title of 1999. A Newspaper reporter and longtime student of wildfire, he assisted in the posthumous publication of his father, Norman Maclean's, Young Men and Fire. He divides his time between Washington D.C., and Montana.
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书评
From Publishers Weekly
This collection of two long and two short essays on U.S. wildfire fighting displays the excellent reporting skills that made Maclean's first book, Fire on the Mountain, a dazzling and popular success. While his earlier book gained much of its storytelling strength from its focus on one incident, Colorado's South Canyon fire of 1994, Maclean's new work is less unified, held together not by a grand idea but primarily by the author's interest in aspects of fire; consequently, the book never becomes more than the sum of its parts. The longest section is a reconstruction of the 1953 rattlesnake fire in California's Mendocino National Forest, which killed 15 wildland firefighters. Maclean's dogged pursuit of reconstructing some key assumptions about the fire makes this a thriller in disguise. The highlight of the book is the second long piece on the 1999 Sadler fire in Nevada, which displays all the power of his earlier work through a highly charged and exciting account of a firefighting crew's disastrous encounter with an uncontrollable fire. Two smaller essays, however-one on the last survivor of the 1954 Mann Gulch fire, which Maclean's father, Norman, wrote about in Young Men and Fire; another a short history of wildland fires-seem to be afterthoughts.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
FromBooklist
Just as combat zones inspire conflicting recollections, firefighting disasters are a challenge to reconstruct, but Maclean again rises to the task. Reprising the themes of hisFire on the Mountain(1999), an account of a fatal 1994 Colorado forest fire, this work tells of two infernos: a 1999 conflagration in Nevada and a 1953 case of arboreal arson in California that took 15 lives when the fire exhibited unexpected behavior. Maclean writes that fire bosses were shocked that it burned downhill, surprising and overwhelming religious missionaries who were working the fire line. Fire's capriciousness also figured in the 1999 Nevada wildfire, but more significant, according to Maclean, was the fact that a crew chief and his superiors made risky decisions; miraculously, a wall of flame angled away and spared trapped firefighters. Careful in analysis, Maclean turns visceral when imparting the sudden terror of life-ending flames, or, as for a survivor of the 1949 Mann Gulch disaster whom he visits, a life-searing whirlwind. A solid choice that will be in demand, particularly during the West's summer fire season.Gilbert Taylor
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