World Fire

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Over the millennia, contends Pyne, humans used fire to sustain slash-and-burn agriculture, and fires set judiciously or occurring spontaneously benefited ecosystems by exposing land to more sunlight, restructuring relationships among species, decomposing debris and fostering biodiversity. Lamenting today's ``obsessive fire control'' and the alleged global spread of ``Europe's pyrophobia,'' Pyne (Fire in America) maintains that ``most American ecosystems in fact suffer from a fire famine.'' Impassioned, often lyrical and sure to be controversial, this incendiary, not always convincing survey assesses fire use and fire-control practices in Australia, Russia, Brazil, Greece, Spain, India, Sweden and Antarctica. Charging that the U.S. Forest Service in the 1930s suppressed research data supporting the ecological value of controlled burning, Pyne maintains that current U.S. firefighting practices are mired in bureaucracy, confusion and overemphasis on the control of wildland fires. Illustrated. (Mar.)

Library Journal

The history of humankind is inseparable from the history of fire. It is difficult to imagine how Homo sapiens could have come to dominate the planet without it. Moreover, by studying fire we can learn much about our past and present selves. Pyne, an Arizona State University professor and the author of several other books about fire, including Burning Bush: A Fire History of Australia (LJ 3/1/91) and Fire on the Rim: A Firefighter's Season at the Grand Canyon (LJ 4/15/89), takes a look at fire and our relationship to it by focusing on nine different regions of the world. Antarctica is included for stark contrast, since it is a land without fire. Another section of this well-written book deals primarily with control of forest fires in modern times in the American West. One point stressed throughout is that our deciding not to burn can be as irresponsible to an ecosystem as improper burning. An intelligent yet accessible book not limited to scolars; recommended for academic and public libraries.-William H. Wiese, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames

Booknews

Pyne's narrative of how fire and humans have coevolved surveys the emerging geography of global fire, examines fire in the contemporary world of unsettled ecology where there is too much fire in the "wrong" places and not enough in the "right" places, and considers the future, arguing for fire's regenerative powers. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Donna Seaman

yne is a fire expert with a blazing poetic streak. His newest book is a vigorous synthesis of all the observations, data, and leaps of creative thought he gathered together in "Fire in America" (1988) and "Burning Bush: A Fire History of Australia" (1991). We are "fire creatures," Pyne writes, "come to dominate a fire planet." Human and earth history aren't complete without a history of fire, a chronicle Pyne forges from sources both scientific and cultural. Our ancestors' survival depended on the domestication of fire. The hearth was the center of family and community life, and for eons fire was a life force as people all over the world used slash-and-burn methods to fertilize and renew the earth. But fire gradually lost its association with creation and became aligned solely with destruction and death. Pyne considers the evolution of fire in such diverse regions as Australia, Africa, Brazil, Sweden, Greece, Iberia, Russia, and India and then ponders Antarctica, the land without fire. As he examines changing techniques for and attitudes toward fire control, Pyne challenges our concepts of nature and wilderness and explains why the study and management of fire have tremendous environmental, cultural, and political implications.

From Barnes & Noble

Explaining how fire and humanity have co-evolved like the bonded strands of a DNA molecule, the author surveys the geography of global fire, revealing a strange disorder where there is too much fire in the wrong places and not enough in the right ones.