The Big Burn: A tale for our times

Ken Stern | Feb 27, 20190

Go to Mt. Baker Theatre March 7 to hear Timothy Egan discuss his 2009 history of the nation’s largest wildfire, which in the summer of 1910 blazed out of control in Idaho and Montana’s Bitterroot Mountains, killing more than 85 people. That’s almost the same number, 86, who died in the not so poetically named Camp fire which destroyed Paradise in California last fall.

This countywide Whatcom Reads is sponsored by that county’s library system.

That is the power of libraries: to make connections, bring people together and open windows to view the vast world beyond our walls.

Why have Egan, one of Washington’s best known residents, a National Book Award winner, discuss this book?

Because there is no longer a forest fire season in the west. Wildfires are now commonplace year round.

Because an anti-government faction disdain federal employess, perhaps especically from the forest service, national parks and Bureau of Land Management, and want to sell off and privatize our vast common heritage, public lands.

Because corruption rules in this presidential administration, with swamp creatures who want nothing more than to destroy regulatory agencies appointed to direct them.

Because swamp creatures in the extractive industries are bosom buddies with their regulators.

All this was true with a vengeance in 1910. It was not a smidgen different from today.

Egan has heroes: Gifford Pinchot, John Muir and most notably, Teddy Roosevelt. All loved the land more than monetary wealth. All spoke truth to power.

And none of them ever gave up.

Out of the ashes of the Great Fire, as it was named, rose the modern U.S. Forest Service. Congress and President Taft were cowed by the disaster and the force of citizens kicking those early 20th century money changers out of the nation’s temples that were their, and are our, public lands.

Out of the ashes of that fire sprouted a national ethic, indeed creed, that these lands are our lands, to be preserved, period, and appreciated by those with the willingness to walk into them and also to be preserved for those who would never see them and preserved for untold generations into the future, not yet born. That is each generation’s legacy to our collective future, our present, our very existence.

These might be the lessons the Whatcom County librarians want us to learn.

The price of admission? Nothing. It is free except for the gas it takes to get you and your friends there.

'Big Burn’ to be discussed in Whatcom: Tim Egan FREE at Mt. Baker Theatre ‘

Ken Stern

In 2017 the librarians, bookstore owners and staffs of Whatcom Reads, the folks north of here who coordinate a yearly common read to foster reading, thinking, discussion and community, chose Timothy Egan’s “The Big Burn.” This 2009 history tells the story of the 1910 wildfire in the Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho and Montana that consumed acreage almost the size of Connecticut and killed at least 86 people.

In Egan’s telling the U.S. Forest Service rose out of this tragedy and crisis, besting a corrupt presidential administration and the vile robber barons intent on privatizing our public lands.

Sounds a lot like 2019. Sounds a lot like any year in our history.

“We tried to pick a topic that is timely,” said Ann McAllen, adult program coordinator for the Whatcom County library system. “There are all the fires that have been happening in the last few years especially in the Pacific Northwest. ‘The Big Burn’ is a timely topic.”

The annual Read typically has Pacific Northwest connections. Egan is Seattle born. He has been writing for the New York Times from Seattle for some 30 years. He is also the author of over six books, a national best seller and National Book Award winner.

She said timeliness and a book that will stimulate a lot of discussion are primary criteria for the book. There has been good attendance and interest in the programming, book discussions and speakers scheduled this winter.

“People are involved. People are quite concerned,” she said, noting that along with wildfires, climate change is emphasized in discussions.

She is not sure if the 1,500 seat Mt. Baker Theatre will fill March 7, but “this year we have had a tremendous amount of interest and inquiry,” she said.

There are another 1,000 seats that the public are invited to fill at the Mount Baker High School auditorium, in Deming. Egan will speak there March 8 at 8:30 a.m.

Both events are free and do not require tickets.

Whatcom Reads launched in 2009.