Showing results for "Fire" in Nature & Ecology

For readers and viewers of The Perfect Storm, opening this long-awaited new work by Sebastian Junger will be like stepping off the deck of the Andrea Gail and into the inferno of a fire burning out of control in the steep canyons of Idaho. Here is the same meticulous prose brought to bear on the...

A "gripping, unshakeable firsthand account" (San Francisco Chronicle) of the firestorm that consumed Los Angeles, from the MS NOW reporter and New York Times bestselling author of Separated, who covered the fires on the ground as an LA native. "Read[s] like a sci-fi thriller.” —Los Angeles...

For readers and viewers of The Perfect Storm, opening this long-awaited new work by Sebastian Junger will be like stepping off the deck of the Andrea Gail and into the inferno of a fire burning out of control in the steep canyons of Idaho. Here is the same meticulous prose brought to bear on the...

Throughout history, when threatened by wildfires our only defense was to pray for rain and run—until aircraft changed the way we fight fires. Beginning with the Canadian "H-Boats" in 1924, aircraft have become indispensable in detecting and extinguishing wildfires. Fire Eaters tells the incredible stories of the Ontario Provincial Air Service, the first government aerial fire suppression organization in history; one of its pilots, Carl Crossley, who invented the water scoop-up and drop-off system; and the Canadair CL-215, the first purpose-built water bomber.

""A phenomenal feat of journalism. . . . I tore through it like a novel but with the queasy knowledge that the whole damn thing is true."" —Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm and War Blending exclusive first-person interviews and penetrating investigative reporting, oil rig captain...

If you live on a rapidly changing planet, you'd be wise to learn how it works. The giant old forests on a skinny stretch of land on the far west coast of North America have a lot to say about living in a twitchy world.

Wildfire shares the drama, hardships, and experiences of the firefighters who try, sometimes in vain, to prevent destruction when a spark flares out of control. Hansen tells the rich and frightening stories of the firefighters themselves and the challenges they face: a safety system struggling to keep up with fire seasons that are lengthening, fires that are becoming more extreme, and agencies that are struggling to cover the bills.

Ben Short has a successful career in advertising, a flat in a trendy part of London, a flashy motorbike. But after years of suffering with anxiety, he's a wreck. A drastic change is needed. For a time, he finds solace working with a forester, then as an apprentice to a Gypsy woodman, setting up home in a dilapidated wagon with just a rescue dog for company.

Elemental, fierce, and full of wonder, the Cairngorm mountains are the high and rocky heart of Scotland. To know them would take forever, to love them demands a kind of courageous surrender. In The Hidden Fires, Merryn Glover undertakes that challenge with Nan Shepherd as companion and guiding light. Following in the footsteps and contours of The Living Mountain, she explores the same landscapes and themes as Shepherd's seminal work

The volcano - among the most familiar and perhaps the most terrifying of all geological phenomena. However, Earth isn't the only planet to harbour volcanoes. In fact, the solar system, and probably the entire universe, is littered with them. Our own Moon, which is now a dormant piece of rock, had lava flowing across its surface billions of years ago, while Mars can be credited with the largest volcano in the solar system.

A valuable discovery under the world's second-largest temperate wetland and in the traditional lands of the Cree and Ojibway casts light on the growing conflict among resource development, environmental stewardship, and Indigenous rights. In this colorful tale, Virginia Heffernan draws on her bush and newsroom experiences to illustrate the complexities of resource development at a time when Indigenous rights are becoming enshrined globally.

Norman MacLean spent the last 14 years of his life determined to sift through grief and controversy in search of the truth behind the Mann Gulch tragedy, one of the worst disasters in the history of the Forest Service. Young Men and Fire is the culmination of his investigations. It is a story about honor, death, compassion, and the human spirit.

More than half a billion years ago, our world was completely covered by glaciers, a "Snowball Earth" that persisted for millions of years. Incredibly, this unimaginable cold led to the remarkable diversification of life on earth known as the Cambrian explosion. With a geologist's eye and a knack for storytelling, Graham Shields explores when and how such inhospitable conditions enabled animals to evolve, radiate, and diversify into our earliest ancestors.

H Is for Hawk meets Joan Didion in the Pyrocene in this arresting combination of memoir, natural history, and literary inquiry that chronicles one woman’s experience of life in Northern California during the worst fire season on record. FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD ...

The Esperanza Fire started October 26, 2006, in the San Jacinto Mountains above the Banning Pass near Cabazon, California. It destroyed 41,000 acres and dozens of homes and cost the taxpayers $16 million dollars. But by far the highest costs of the conflagration were the lives of the five-man crew of Engine 57, the first engine crew ever killed fighting a wildland blaze. Fire and superheated gases had erupted in a freak "area ignition," sending flames racing across three-quarters of a mile in mere seconds, engulfing the crew and the house they were defending.

Inspired by America's beloved national parks, Campfire Stories Volume II is a collection of modern prose, poetry, folklore, and more, featuring commissioned, new, and existing works from a diverse group of writers who share a deep appreciation of the natural world. While the original Campfire Stories captured many historic tales reflecting the first 100 years of the National Park Service, this completely new collection, focused on five different parks (plus two long-distance trails), depicts the parks as we know and experience them today.

In this podcast we explore the concept of fire as a tool for ecological health and cultural empowerment by indigenous people around the globe. Good Fire is a term used to describe fire that is lit intentionally to achieve specific ecological and cultural goals. Good fire is about balance.

In THE WORST HARD TIME, Timothy Egan put the environmental disaster of the Dust Bowl at the center of a rich history, told through characters he brought to indelible life. Now he performs the same alchemy with the Big Burn, the largest-ever forest fire in America and the tragedy that cemented...

Ignited by a lightning strike in a remote forest, the Currowan fire was one of the most terrifying episodes of Australia's Black Summer. It burnt for 74 days, consuming nearly 5,000 square kilometres of land, destroying well over 500 homes and leaving many people shattered. In the aftermath, there were questions. Why were resources so few that many faced the flames alone? Why was there back-burning on a day of extreme fire danger? Why weren’t they better prepared?

The first indication of the prolonged terror that followed the 1906 earthquake occurred when a ship steaming off San Francisco's Golden Gate "seemed to jump clear out of the water." This gripping account of the earthquake, the devastating firestorms that followed, and the city's subsequent reconstruction vividly shows how, after the shaking stopped, humans, not the forces of nature, nearly destroyed San Francisco in a remarkable display of simple ineptitude and power politics.