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Steve Pyne @sjpyne.bsky.social · 2d

Was kind of a fun interview, tho had to drive 90 minutes to find the coniferous forest background the show wanted. Unfortunately, it looks like the video is blocked in US, so I can't speak to how it all came out.

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Reposted by Steve Pyne

juli g pausas @jgpausas.bsky.social · Aug 25

New paper: The role of fire on Earth
doi.org/10.1093/bios... BioScience @aibsbiology.bsky.social
Fire affects all major components of the Earth system: atmosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere, anthroposphere, & biosphere. Fire is an intrinsic factor on our planet.

🧪🌍🔥🌳🌿🌐 wildfire

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Steve Pyne @sjpyne.bsky.social · Aug 20

Easy to praise a seminal paper. Glad they let a guy who is neither a dendrochronologist nor an archaelogist have a crack at it.

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Steve Pyne @sjpyne.bsky.social · Aug 20

(l) Ed Pulaski a few weeks after the Blowup.
(r) Many years later, dispatching a fire guard equipped with his eponymous tool.

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Steve Pyne @sjpyne.bsky.social · Aug 20

Thread: August 20, the anniversary of the Big Blowup, a catalyst for the American way of wildland fire.

(top) Post-season map of the 1910 season, with the Blowup circled in red.
(bottom) Photo of the mine adit where ranger Ed Pulaski held his crew at gunpoint.

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Steve Pyne @sjpyne.bsky.social · Aug 20

(l) Ed Pulaski a few weeks after the fire.
(r) Years later sending out a fire guard equipped with his eponymous tool.

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Steve Pyne @sjpyne.bsky.social · Aug 11

Shouldn't be a surprise - the fire practices of indigenous peoples in the highly fire-prone SW could locally override even climate signals. But that is what received understanding claimed. Here's the data to bring the Ndee into alignment with other premodern peoples.

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Tree rings reveal persistent Western Apache (Ndee) fire stewardship and niche construction in the American Southwest | PNAS

Identifying the influence of low-density Indigenous populations in paleofire records has been methodologically challenging. In the Southwest United...

www.pnas.org

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Steve Pyne @sjpyne.bsky.social · Aug 10

In 1968 lightning started a fire on the Dragon's Head. The park let it burn. The FS said if the park didn't suppress the fire, it would. A B17 dropped retardant. Now a fire is allowed to spread from the Rim to the Dragon. How the meaning of full suppression has changed.This fire remains a cypher.

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Steve Pyne @sjpyne.bsky.social · Aug 10

Thread. Yet another avatar for Dragon Bravo - burning an isolated mesa in the Canyon, this time The Dragon itself (one of the Canyon's most apt placenames).

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Steve Pyne @sjpyne.bsky.social · Aug 9

Dragon Bravo keeps reincarnating - now it's a Canyon fire, sending a giant talon eastward from the Walhalla Plateau across the Canyon at its widest. Always had a Canyon fire or two each season, but - really?

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Steve Pyne @sjpyne.bsky.social · Jul 31

In grad school I studied history of science, geomorphology, American West, and intellectual-cultural history, all aligning with the history of exploration, of which Great Ages makes a conceptual capstone. When I decided to write fire, my exploration stuff was my quasi-model. Just released in pb

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Steve Pyne @sjpyne.bsky.social · Jul 31

Quite a summer for European fire.
I'm reminded of a passage from A.C.Clarke's 2001: "Beyond the reaches of sea and land and air and space lay the realms of fire.." Not a bad account of the maturing Pyrocene.

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

Thousands in Greece and Turkey evacuate as winds and heat fan wildfires

Czech firefighters and Italian aircraft join rescue effort in Greece, and firefighter among those killed in Turkey

www.theguardian.com

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Steve Pyne @sjpyne.bsky.social · Jul 30

Our management metrics can't cope with this kind of shape-shifting complexity. The Kaibab Plateau is becoming a cypher.

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Steve Pyne @sjpyne.bsky.social · Jul 30

It looks like it will link with the burn footprint of the 2006 Warm fire (an escaped WFU; blue arrow). If so it will be bracketed on the north by an escaped WFU and on the south by an escaped Rx fire (the 2000 Outlet fire). If it reaches the White Sage fire, by the entire plateau.

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Steve Pyne @sjpyne.bsky.social · Jul 30

Thread on Dragon Bravo, which continues its serial reincarnations. Began as lightning fire in confine and contain mode (escaped). Morphed into urban fire (incinerated park's developed area). Swelled into proto-megafire (blew over major containment line). Now a free-burning megafire.

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Steve Pyne @sjpyne.bsky.social · Jul 28

Quite a contrast with the managed fires on the Gila NF. But then the Gila was one of the very few places to embrace the policy reforms of 1978 and begin restoring fire. We're seeing resilience from 40 years of sustained effort

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Steve Pyne @sjpyne.bsky.social · Jul 28

There is a lot I'd like to say but I need more facts than I have now. History is about context and contingency. Writing is about voice and vision. As we learn more about the, I'll be able to wrangle the pieces together. Still, having the Grand Canyon as your fireline is a bit gobsmacking.

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Steve Pyne @sjpyne.bsky.social · Jul 28

Dragon Bravo fire - blowing, going, gone. The Kaibab Plateau as microcosm of Earth, consumed in a slow-motion Ragnarok. This is where my life as a scholar on fire began. There is no way I cannot not take on this fire as a project and try to give it context - would be professional malfeasance.

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Steve Pyne @sjpyne.bsky.social · Jul 28

The only thing that will stop this fire is a massive change in weather (rain, wind) or the Canyon - above Saddle Mtn, Marble; below, Grand. Other than the Kaibab Lodge complex, there is not much worth keeping up a fight, however "full" you want to call the suppression.

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Steve Pyne @sjpyne.bsky.social · Jul 24

A fire that seemed to begin as a demo of how not to do confine-and-contain, complete with urban conflagration, is evolving into a master class on big-box-and-burn. Interesting cameo of the American wildland fire scene.
inciweb.wildfire.gov/incident-inf...

| InciWeb

Incidents Page of for the Inciweb site.

inciweb.wildfire.gov

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Reposted by Steve Pyne

Tom Swetnam @firescar.bsky.social · Jul 20

The Turkeyfeather Fire in the Gila Wilderness, NM has burned as a low-severity fire over about 24,000 acres (so far). This is a continuation of a fire regime that existed for millennia before the 20th century. This 🧵reviews the fire history of the Gila, as my colleagues and I have studied it. 1/18

low severity surface fire burning through a ponderosa pine forest

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Steve Pyne @sjpyne.bsky.social · Jul 19

Wondering what I might say about the WU scene now that it has gotten so technical (a good development, actually). Maybe contribute to its redefinition? How about - Owning the WUI: HIZ, HERZ, ITZ [https://www.stephenpyne.com/blog]

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Steve Pyne @sjpyne.bsky.social · Jul 19

Great poem caption

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Steve Pyne @sjpyne.bsky.social · Jul 15

We shouldn't use a bad fire to destroy a good policy - nor use a good policy to justify a bad fire. I spent 15 seasons on the North Rim fire crew, 12 as crew boss. Looking for some solid info from the NPS on this event; so far a lot of drivel.The 2000 Outlet fire (escaped Rx) was also on Tiyo...

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Steve Pyne @sjpyne.bsky.social · Apr 11

Another round with poop in the coop - another free-associating parody....

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