Smokechasing
Stephen J. Pyne
From aboriginal burners of the Australian bush to hotshot smoke jumpers of the American West, fire historian Stephen J. Pyne blazes a trail through the human relationship with fire. Smokechasing (University of Arizona Press, $37.50), a collection of Pyne's essays, matches the prose of a poet with the impish irreverence of a firebug, torching the dogma of both those who would outlaw fire and those who now worship the prescribed burn. On one hand, "Smokey Bear needs a sibling … who wields a drip torch," he writes. On the other: "Prescribed fire does not need more policy. It needs a poet." Ultimately, Pyne would rather pour gas on the fire debate than attempt a hopeless escape from it: "We remain the keepers of the flame, however slovenly we practice our craft."
-William Stolzenburg
