``The nearest anyone can come to finding himself at any given age is to find a story that somehow tells him about himself.''
Norman Maclean was one of the pre-eminent Shakespeare critics of his
generation. He taught at the University of Chicago for much of his adult
life, a well-respected professor and an important scholar who made valuable
contributions to his particular field of study. Yet it was only after he
retired from the university that he began the work that would reach, and
profoundly influence, a substantial portion of society.
Maclean became obsessed with the disastrous events of the fighting of
a wild fire which took place in August, 1949, in the Seeley Lake region of
Montana. The fire, started by lightning, was initially rated as a
slow-moving, relatively mild blaze; a troop of 16 fire fighters were dropped
into a burning canyon in the middle of the afternoon on what seemed a
relatively well-defined, fairly safe, mission. In less than an hour the fire
was fanned by daily winds into an inferno, with flames reaching 150 feet in to
the air, killing 13 out of 16 firefighters on the spot in a matter of minutes.
How could this this tragedy happen, and with so little warning?
Maclean spent fourteen years researching the events of the fire, to
understand how its danger could have been so underestimated, how it
spread so rapidly and burned so hotly throughout the canyon, and how
three men, against the odds, managed to survive the blaze. He wrote a
book,
Young Men & Fire, which told the story of the fire, and detailed
the repercussions of the event. He was trained in the art of writing,
and in communicating ideas, skills which were very important in this
endeavor. But he also forced a complete and thorough analysis
of the fire, the topography of the canyon, the weather conditions, and
the techniques which each fire fighter used in his attempt to survive.
His efforts advanced the science of fire fighting tremendously, and
resulted in the saving of many lives in fires which would strike in
later years.
What techniques did the three fire fighters use to survive?
The escape fire that the crew foreman set is now the
basis of an accepted method for preserving lives and halting fires
what is the principle behind the escape fire?
what led Wag Dodge to try this revolutionary, counterintuitive
idea that you could stop fire with fire?