For those who might like a single volume entry into Prof. Stephen J. Pyne’s research into the behavior of wild land fires and, perhaps more immediately important, his ideas regarding how to think about and understand the history and dynamics of fire, University of California Press recently published his book “The Pyrocene; How We Created an Age of Fire, and What Happens Next.”
Not so very long ago, while listening to a fascinating podcast discussion about Neanderthals between Melvyn Bragg, Simon Conway Morris, Chris Stringer, and Danielle Schreve from the BBC’s In Our Time program’s archive, I was struck by the use of the phrase “the domestication of fire” by one of the panelists (my apologies for not recalling which one). I hadn’t previously thought about fire as something to be domesticated, but immediately upon hearing the phrase, I thought “well there it is.”
If you’ve been enjoying the many volumes of Stephen J. Pyne’s “To The Last Smoke” series and ever found yourself thinking, “Gee, I’d really like to recommend this entire collection to some friends but I don’t know if they’d be willing to read so many books” then your friends are now in luck.
Given the amount of rain I’ve been seeing while here attending Ohio’s The Biggest Week in American Birding, there’s not much chance of any significant wildland fires breaking out; however if one did, thanks to the recent publication of Stephen J. Pyne’s “The Northeast; A Fire Survey” I take comfort in knowing that I could quickly acquire an understanding of the reasons why it may have done so, the history of past fires in the region, and gain a bit of insight into how it might behave as well.