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The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America (2009) tells the story of a wildfire in 1910 that burned 3 million acres. The fire, which is believed to be the largest wildfire in United States history, was stopped by a newly created federal agency called the Forest Service. The book describes how President Teddy Roosevelt and his forester Gifford Pinchot envisioned an America where people appreciated their wild lands for their beauty and intrinsic worth.
The fire begins in Wallace, Idaho on August 20, 1910. The wind intensifies it into a huge blaze that rangers and firefighters try to control with little experience or equipment. They use immigrants from the area, prisoners from jails, and even Buffalo Soldiers sent by President Taft to help fight the fire.
Theodore Roosevelt was a president who loved the outdoors. He was an extreme sports enthusiast and big game hunter, having slain animals from rhinos to elephants. With his friend Gifford Pinchot, he believed that America’s wilderness should be preserved in order to protect it for future generations of Americans. His efforts led to the creation of US Forest Service which protected millions of acres as well as funding rangers tasked with preserving these areas for future generations.
Roosevelt chose William Howard Taft to succeed him in 1908. Egan, however, portrays Taft as a lethargic do-nothing who lacks Roosevelt’s vigor and is someone who betrays Roosevelt’s progressive conservationist agenda by defunding the Forest Service almost entirely, leaving the agency without adequate resources to manage fires that frequently ignite in the summer of 1910 due to an early spring, dry summer and increased industrial and railroad activity. Rangers work long days all summer but cannot keep pace with the fires because they lack resources or men. Throughout August, fires grow into one large wall of flame that decimates forests and towns in three western states.
After the 1910 fire, Roosevelt and Pinchot continued fighting for conservation. Roosevelt ran for president in 1912 but lost to Woodrow Wilson. However, public favorability increased after the fire and Congress allocated more funding. Many of those injured were never compensated, though; today, the Forest Service is focused on managing wildfires rather than conserving land.
Roosevelt was a Republican while Wilson was a Democrat—just like our current situation with Trump vs Clinton (though I’m not saying that one is good or bad). The point here is that you can use any political context to make your argument stronger by comparing it to an aspect of history.
The following guide refers to the 2009 edition of “The Elements of Style” by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Prologue: “A Fire at the End of the World”
Wallace, Idaho was lucky to survive the fire that burned through their town in 1910. The residents were able to evacuate before it destroyed the town completely. However, 20 years later they’re having trouble evacuating and keeping people safe from the fire again. Some men are trying to get onto evacuation trains so that they can stay and fight off the fire instead of evacuating with everyone else. There’s a lot of chaos as women and children try to board while some men push them away and climb aboard themselves.
Firefighting in this age mostly consists of running garden hoses over roofs, throwing buckets of water at flames, and shoveling dirt onto fires. That night, a large ember ignites the local newspaper building. Staff inside flee as the flames spread across every building in Wallace, including the railway depot designated for evacuation. Egan writes that “From the streets, it looked like all of Wallace was burning” (Egan).
