The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America

The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America (2009) tells the true story of the Great Fire of 1910, which burned 3 million acres in Idaho, Montana, Washington, and British Columbia, and is believed to be the largest wildfire in United States history. Authored by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Timothy Egan, the book describes the newly created United States Forest Service effort to stop the fire and details President Teddy Roosevelt’s conservation battles with Congress. With his head forester Gifford Pinchot, Roosevelt envisioned an America that appreciated its wild lands for their beauty and intrinsic worth. Egan’s book is a retelling of the United States’ first active efforts to protect these lands.

The Prologue begins as the fire reaches Wallace, Idaho, on August 20, 1910. Extreme wind combines thousands of small wildfires into an immense blaze. Rangers in the forest service battle the fire and recruit anyone willing to help. Most of these firefighters are inexperienced; they are immigrants, local miners, timber workers, railroad workers, out-of-work journeymen, homesteaders, Buffalo Soldiers sent by President Taft, and even prisoners.

Egan describes Roosevelt’s presidency and his conservationist agenda, enacted with his confidant and fellow conservationist Gifford Pinchot. Roosevelt, an outdoorsman, extreme sports enthusiast, and big game hunter, believes the American wilderness is a national treasure on par with the castles and cathedrals of Europe and should be revered as such. Roosevelt and Pinchot battle with congressional factions who represent industrial interests, working to create the United States Forest Service, preserving millions of acres of national forests, and funding the rangers tasked with protecting them.

Roosevelt hand-picks William Howard Taft to succeed him in 1908. Egan portrays Taft as a lethargic do-nothing who lacks Roosevelt’s vigor and as someone who betrays Roosevelt’s progressive conservationist agenda. Congressional enemies of conservation have their way with Taft and succeed in defunding the Forest Service almost entirely, leaving the agency without adequate resources to manage the fires that frequently ignite in the summer of 1910 as a result of an early spring, dry summer, and increased industrial and railroad activity. Rangers work long days all summer to manage the blazes, but without resources or men, they cannot keep pace with the fires. Throughout August, the fires grow to a catastrophic level, combining into one large wall of flame and decimating forests and towns in three large western states.

Roosevelt and Pinchot’s conservation battles continue after the fire. Roosevelt again runs for President in 1912, but loses to the Democrat Woodrow Wilson. Public favorability of the Forest Service and national forest system increases after the fire and Congress allocates increased funding. However, many of those injured fighting the fire are never compensated for medical expenses and wages. Today, the Forest Service has evolved into an organization whose primary purpose is to manage wildfires, and conservationists continue to battle industry over use of the land.

This guide refers to the 2009 edition by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Other works by this author include A Fever in the Heartland, The Immortal Irishman, and Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher.