Reddit reviews Young Men and Fire

For anyone interested in wildfires and how they can catch you “Young Men and Fire” by Norm MacLean (A River Runs Through It) is an interesting read I highly recommend.

This book will answer your question technically and address the depth of emotion the firefighting community is feeling.

http://www.amazon.com/Young-Men-Fire-Norman-Maclean/dp/0226500624

Young Men and Fire by Norman Maclean. Its about the Mann Gulch Fire in 1949 that killed 13 smoke jumpers. Its about wildland firefighting but still a good read.

They still do it today. If you're ever in Missoula, MT it wouldn't be a bad idea to check out the Smokejumper Visitor Center. Or read Young Men and Fire, a great book about the 1949 Mann Gulch Fire which took 13 lives.

Judging from your mindset, I strongly recommend Young Men and Fire, the fateful story of a group of early smokejumpers who died to a blowup fire in Montana.

It's an exhaustive research account that takes into account all the energy factors of the situation from the way the fire was fed through wind, fuel, brush (grass as opposed to canopy) and the more dramatic energy factor of the boys who ran hundreds of yards up a near vertical incline in what they knew would be the last footrace of their lives. He talks about which ones went which ways, why they veered and what places they chose for refuge, and then tries in the most humane way possible to explain why the few lived and the rest died.

yeah. i'm not sure if that's a relatively new term or something but we just called them all fire whirls. that is what I'm talking about. They do sound awful. i didn't realize they themselves cause so much damage, i was just told that if you were in a part of the fire producing that, then you're probably already boxed in and about to die. i can't find confirmation anywhere so maybe it was just some horror stories our WF trainers like to tell students or something. I'm reminded of the book Young Men and Fire by Norman Maclean (of A River Runs Through It fame if you don't recognize the name) that tells the story of the Mann Gulch fire. Norman, I believe was able to interview the IC on that jump (i forget his name). He may have talked about it in that book but it's been so long I can't remember. Great book. Very heartbreaking though.

I'm pretty amazed nobody has mentioned autobiographies (or biographies if there is not an autobiography of that person) since you say you like reading about what other people have been through.

I would also recommend Jon Krakauer - He wrote Into the Wild (based on a real person/also a movie if you didn't know), Into Thin Air (his own experience in climbing Everest during one of the deadliest climbing seasons on record), and Where Men Win Glory (excellent book about events leading up to PatTillman's death and ensuing cover-up). They're all well written, easy to read, and fascinating non-fiction books.

And FWIW, the book that made me switch to the printed word is Young Men and Fire - a book about a wild fire in Mann Gulch that more or less defied physics and killed the smoke-jumpers that parachuted in to fight it.