Slopovers: Fire Surveys of the Mid-American Oak Woodlands, Pacific Northwest, and Alaska
America is not simply a federation of states but a confederation of regions. Some have always held national attention, some just for a time. Slopovers examines three regions that once dominated the national narrative and may now be returning to prominence.

The Mid-American oak woodlands were the scene of vigorous settlement in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and thus the scene of changing fire practices. The debate over the origin of the prairies—by climate or fire—foreshadowed the more recent debate about fire in oak and hickory hardwoods. In both cases, today’s thinking points to the critical role of fire.

The Pacific Northwest was the great pivot between laissez-faire logging and state-sponsored conservation and the fires that would accompany each. Then fire faded as an environmental issue. But it has returned over the past decade like an avenging angel, forcing the region to again consider the defining dialectic between axe and flame.

And Alaska—Alaska is different, as everyone says. It came late to wildland fire protection, then managed an extraordinary transfiguration into the most successful American region to restore something like the historic fire regime. But Alaska is also a petrostate, and climate change may be making it the vanguard of what the Anthropocene will mean for American fire overall.

Slopovers collates surveys of these three regions into the national narrative. With a unique mixture of journalism, history, and literary imagination, renowned fire expert Stephen J. Pyne shows how culture and nature, fire from nature and fire from people, interact to shape our world with three case studies in public policy and the challenging questions they pose about the future we will share with fire.
1129710806
Slopovers: Fire Surveys of the Mid-American Oak Woodlands, Pacific Northwest, and Alaska
America is not simply a federation of states but a confederation of regions. Some have always held national attention, some just for a time. Slopovers examines three regions that once dominated the national narrative and may now be returning to prominence.

The Mid-American oak woodlands were the scene of vigorous settlement in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and thus the scene of changing fire practices. The debate over the origin of the prairies—by climate or fire—foreshadowed the more recent debate about fire in oak and hickory hardwoods. In both cases, today’s thinking points to the critical role of fire.

The Pacific Northwest was the great pivot between laissez-faire logging and state-sponsored conservation and the fires that would accompany each. Then fire faded as an environmental issue. But it has returned over the past decade like an avenging angel, forcing the region to again consider the defining dialectic between axe and flame.

And Alaska—Alaska is different, as everyone says. It came late to wildland fire protection, then managed an extraordinary transfiguration into the most successful American region to restore something like the historic fire regime. But Alaska is also a petrostate, and climate change may be making it the vanguard of what the Anthropocene will mean for American fire overall.

Slopovers collates surveys of these three regions into the national narrative. With a unique mixture of journalism, history, and literary imagination, renowned fire expert Stephen J. Pyne shows how culture and nature, fire from nature and fire from people, interact to shape our world with three case studies in public policy and the challenging questions they pose about the future we will share with fire.
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Slopovers: Fire Surveys of the Mid-American Oak Woodlands, Pacific Northwest, and Alaska

Slopovers: Fire Surveys of the Mid-American Oak Woodlands, Pacific Northwest, and Alaska

by Stephen J. Pyne
Slopovers: Fire Surveys of the Mid-American Oak Woodlands, Pacific Northwest, and Alaska

Slopovers: Fire Surveys of the Mid-American Oak Woodlands, Pacific Northwest, and Alaska

by Stephen J. Pyne

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Overview

America is not simply a federation of states but a confederation of regions. Some have always held national attention, some just for a time. Slopovers examines three regions that once dominated the national narrative and may now be returning to prominence.

The Mid-American oak woodlands were the scene of vigorous settlement in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and thus the scene of changing fire practices. The debate over the origin of the prairies—by climate or fire—foreshadowed the more recent debate about fire in oak and hickory hardwoods. In both cases, today’s thinking points to the critical role of fire.

The Pacific Northwest was the great pivot between laissez-faire logging and state-sponsored conservation and the fires that would accompany each. Then fire faded as an environmental issue. But it has returned over the past decade like an avenging angel, forcing the region to again consider the defining dialectic between axe and flame.

And Alaska—Alaska is different, as everyone says. It came late to wildland fire protection, then managed an extraordinary transfiguration into the most successful American region to restore something like the historic fire regime. But Alaska is also a petrostate, and climate change may be making it the vanguard of what the Anthropocene will mean for American fire overall.

Slopovers collates surveys of these three regions into the national narrative. With a unique mixture of journalism, history, and literary imagination, renowned fire expert Stephen J. Pyne shows how culture and nature, fire from nature and fire from people, interact to shape our world with three case studies in public policy and the challenging questions they pose about the future we will share with fire.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780816539758
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Publication date: 04/02/2019
Series: To the Last Smoke
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 256
File size: 1 MB

About the Author

Stephen J. Pyne is Regents’ Professor in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University. He is the author of more than 30 books, mostly on wildland fire and its history but also dealing with the history of places and exploration, including The Ice, How the Canyon Became Grand, and Voyager. Most recently, he has surveyed the American fire scene in Between Two Fires: A Fire History of Contemporary America and a suite of regional reconnaissances, To the Last Smoke, all published by the University of Arizona Press.

Table of Contents

Series Preface: To the Last Smoke
Preface to Volume 8


THE MID-AMERICAN OAK WOODLANDS: A FIRE SURVEY
Author’s Note: Oak Woodlands
Prologue: East of the 100th Meridian
The Long Hunt
A Dark and Burning Ground
Unchanged Past: Stones River National Battlefield
Uncertain Future: Land Between the Lakes
Unsettled Present: Nature Conservation
Missouri Compromise
Epilogue: The Oak Woodlands Between Two Fires
Note on Sources

THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST: A FIRE SURVEY
Author’s Note: Pacific Northwest
Prologue: Green on Black
Fire and Axe: The First and Second Timber Wars
Grace Under Fire: The Willamette Valley
Crossing the Klamath
Restoration Sings the Blues
An Ecological and Silvicultural Tool: Harold Weaver
Epilogue: The Pacific Northwest Between Two Fires
Note on Sources

ALASKA: A FIRE SURVEY
Author’s Note: Alaska
Prologue: Last Frontier, Lost Frontier
The Alaskan Persuasion
Pyropolitics, Alaska Style
The Alaska Fire Service
Last Frontier of the U.S. Forest Service
Live-Fire Zone
Sparks of Imagination
In the Black
Kenai
North to the Future: Pleistocene to Pyrocene
Epilogue: Alaska Between Two Fires
Note on Sources

Notes
Index
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