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misterfix 's review for:
When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World
by Jordan Thomas
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
There is a whole lot to process in this book and all of it is anchored by the authors personal journey, his deep bond with his family - the LP Hotshots, and his research into the effectiveness of current and historical forest stewardship methods. So much more of an emotional gut punch than I had expected.
I was incensed and distressed to learn the rate of pay and lack of health coverage for any accidents while out risking their lives fighting fires. And no money for counseling to aid them in coping with the psychological and emotional rollercoaster that is akin to what soldiers experience. Unfortunately the war metaphor is cruely appropriate given the historic response to first how me 'manage forests' vs stewarding them, and all built on the genocide of and complete disrespect for the wisdom of indigenous practices.
Big oils massive ongoing campaign to promote their product, demonize alternatives and conceal the cost was detailed just enough to aid in appreciating the contribution to how we got here and the cost of the continued sponsorship. The classic question, who gains, and the axiom 'follow the money' are covered as well. $80,000 per drop off retardant despite it's use often having no effect as megafires essentially just leap over their lines. Instead the drops are publicity. Air shows for politicians eager to demonstrate to their constituents that they care... basically flying over and dropping dollar bills.
Then the reminder about the obliteration of the ecosystem by logging, the lobbying and lies of the fossil fuel industry ripped at me. The dying of the resilient sequoias.
I especially appreciated how the author shifts what the reader associates with the title. Initially I interpreted it as a grim project off never ending destructive fires, then it gradually resonated as a look back on indigenous burning practices. Ultimately Mr Thomas has turned the title on it's head and rather than having dark undertones the lead foresters response to the question 'how much she wanted to burn', "I'm going to burn all of it.", is a message of hope and promise. Faint though it may be...
____________
"Maybe, in the era of climate change, the sequoias have emerged again as such poignant symbols due to a deeper intuition, or fear, that if the lines of our society - from the legal lines of regulation to the physical lines of dirt - fail to hold back the destructive forces driving sequoias toward extinction, then these lines might always have been but a diversion from a deeper, much more difficult kind of reckoning, one that is imminent, the far side of which is opaque and possibly ter-rible. Whatever it was, it was becoming visible now as a molten glow in the dusk, just over the horizon."
I was incensed and distressed to learn the rate of pay and lack of health coverage for any accidents while out risking their lives fighting fires. And no money for counseling to aid them in coping with the psychological and emotional rollercoaster that is akin to what soldiers experience. Unfortunately the war metaphor is cruely appropriate given the historic response to first how me 'manage forests' vs stewarding them, and all built on the genocide of and complete disrespect for the wisdom of indigenous practices.
Big oils massive ongoing campaign to promote their product, demonize alternatives and conceal the cost was detailed just enough to aid in appreciating the contribution to how we got here and the cost of the continued sponsorship. The classic question, who gains, and the axiom 'follow the money' are covered as well. $80,000 per drop off retardant despite it's use often having no effect as megafires essentially just leap over their lines. Instead the drops are publicity. Air shows for politicians eager to demonstrate to their constituents that they care... basically flying over and dropping dollar bills.
Then the reminder about the obliteration of the ecosystem by logging, the lobbying and lies of the fossil fuel industry ripped at me. The dying of the resilient sequoias.
I especially appreciated how the author shifts what the reader associates with the title. Initially I interpreted it as a grim project off never ending destructive fires, then it gradually resonated as a look back on indigenous burning practices. Ultimately Mr Thomas has turned the title on it's head and rather than having dark undertones the lead foresters response to the question 'how much she wanted to burn', "I'm going to burn all of it.", is a message of hope and promise. Faint though it may be...
____________
"Maybe, in the era of climate change, the sequoias have emerged again as such poignant symbols due to a deeper intuition, or fear, that if the lines of our society - from the legal lines of regulation to the physical lines of dirt - fail to hold back the destructive forces driving sequoias toward extinction, then these lines might always have been but a diversion from a deeper, much more difficult kind of reckoning, one that is imminent, the far side of which is opaque and possibly ter-rible. Whatever it was, it was becoming visible now as a molten glow in the dusk, just over the horizon."