Steve Pyne
@sjpyne.bsky.social
Writer, fire guy (aka pyromantic), exploration historian, urban farmer. Recent books include "Pyrocene Park" and "Five Suns: A Fire History of Mexico."
Website: www.stephenpyne.com
Website: www.stephenpyne.com
As reports tally up the 2025 fires, here's a long view back. I've updated and abridged Vestal Fire - now 40% as long, with half the new text completely rewritten, reorganized, and reconceptualized. The narrative still includes Russia. Should be published in spring, 2026.
October 16, 2025 at 2:24 PM
As reports tally up the 2025 fires, here's a long view back. I've updated and abridged Vestal Fire - now 40% as long, with half the new text completely rewritten, reorganized, and reconceptualized. The narrative still includes Russia. Should be published in spring, 2026.
(l) Ed Pulaski a few weeks after the Blowup.
(r) Many years later, dispatching a fire guard equipped with his eponymous tool.
(r) Many years later, dispatching a fire guard equipped with his eponymous tool.
August 20, 2025 at 2:09 AM
(l) Ed Pulaski a few weeks after the Blowup.
(r) Many years later, dispatching a fire guard equipped with his eponymous tool.
(r) Many years later, dispatching a fire guard equipped with his eponymous tool.
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.
(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.
August 20, 2025 at 2:09 AM
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.
(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.
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).
August 10, 2025 at 2:03 PM
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).
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?
August 9, 2025 at 3:30 PM
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?
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
July 31, 2025 at 10:31 PM
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
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.
July 30, 2025 at 11:43 AM
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.
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.
July 28, 2025 at 2:27 AM
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.
Another round with poop in the coop - another free-associating parody....
April 11, 2025 at 3:22 AM
Another round with poop in the coop - another free-associating parody....
Amazing how the mind free associates when cleaning up chicken and sheep poop ...
April 10, 2025 at 2:37 AM
Amazing how the mind free associates when cleaning up chicken and sheep poop ...
Amid wildfires and political arson - a memento from a gentler fire era. A smokechaser lamp (yes, it works). What happens when a crew sits around the fire cache during a season-ending storm.
March 18, 2025 at 12:10 PM
Amid wildfires and political arson - a memento from a gentler fire era. A smokechaser lamp (yes, it works). What happens when a crew sits around the fire cache during a season-ending storm.
On rebuilding after urban fires - here's Baudette MN , before and after the fire of Oct 7, 1910 (the other Great Fire of that year). Reconstruction was rapid for both humanitarian and economic reasons - winter was imminent and property values were threatened.
February 20, 2025 at 8:06 PM
On rebuilding after urban fires - here's Baudette MN , before and after the fire of Oct 7, 1910 (the other Great Fire of that year). Reconstruction was rapid for both humanitarian and economic reasons - winter was imminent and property values were threatened.
Willard Libby, Nobel laureate in physics, shill for AEC, and ardent advocate for bomb shelters, showcases low-cost shelter in his backyard. Two weeks later the Bel Air fire overran both his shelter and his house. His wife escaped with her fur coat and his Nobel medallion.
January 17, 2025 at 3:21 AM
Willard Libby, Nobel laureate in physics, shill for AEC, and ardent advocate for bomb shelters, showcases low-cost shelter in his backyard. Two weeks later the Bel Air fire overran both his shelter and his house. His wife escaped with her fur coat and his Nobel medallion.
Disaster fires invite photo ops from politicians. One of my favorites: Richard Nixon, then between jobs, in shirt and tie, standing on a shake-shingle roof, holding a garden hose, staring vapidly - somewhere, while smoke rises in the background from the Bel Air-Brentwood conflagration in 1961.
January 12, 2025 at 1:49 AM
Disaster fires invite photo ops from politicians. One of my favorites: Richard Nixon, then between jobs, in shirt and tie, standing on a shake-shingle roof, holding a garden hose, staring vapidly - somewhere, while smoke rises in the background from the Bel Air-Brentwood conflagration in 1961.
A more dramatic burn on the slopes, with more CCC on the fireline.
January 11, 2025 at 2:41 AM
A more dramatic burn on the slopes, with more CCC on the fireline.
Ok, an anecdotal image - but this is what structure protection looked like in the 1935 Malibu fires. What a change in scale and character - of fire, of the built environment, of firefighting capacity (CCC boys then). Only the inevitability of fire in some form is constant.
January 11, 2025 at 2:41 AM
Ok, an anecdotal image - but this is what structure protection looked like in the 1935 Malibu fires. What a change in scale and character - of fire, of the built environment, of firefighting capacity (CCC boys then). Only the inevitability of fire in some form is constant.
A little historical context as Eaton fire moves toward Mt Wilson - photo shows the observatory watching fires from the 1924 season, which was considered monstrous at the time, and might be taken as the first of a century-long cycle of historic conflagrations.
January 9, 2025 at 9:46 PM
A little historical context as Eaton fire moves toward Mt Wilson - photo shows the observatory watching fires from the 1924 season, which was considered monstrous at the time, and might be taken as the first of a century-long cycle of historic conflagrations.
I spent New Year's 1981/82 at Dome C, a block of ice deeper than Mt Whitney and (as part of East Antarctica) nearly as wide as Australia. Flying in the only feature visible on the ice sheet was the shadow of the LC-130s contrail.
January 9, 2025 at 3:02 PM
I spent New Year's 1981/82 at Dome C, a block of ice deeper than Mt Whitney and (as part of East Antarctica) nearly as wide as Australia. Flying in the only feature visible on the ice sheet was the shadow of the LC-130s contrail.
Allotted 6,000 characters, so I went literary in my opening.
January 8, 2025 at 3:13 AM
Allotted 6,000 characters, so I went literary in my opening.
Bauwelt, a German architecture magazine, is doing an issue on Los Angeles - City on the Edge and asked for a commentary on fire. My hard copy arrived just in time for the Palisades fire.
January 8, 2025 at 2:31 AM
Bauwelt, a German architecture magazine, is doing an issue on Los Angeles - City on the Edge and asked for a commentary on fire. My hard copy arrived just in time for the Palisades fire.
There was no institutional mechanism to leverage the tragedy. DoD was not part of the wildland fire community. By contrast, the Battlement Creek fire in 1976 killed 4 USFS hotshots and led to reforms, including mandatory fire shelters. It's not the event. It's how it impacts society.
December 20, 2024 at 2:03 AM
There was no institutional mechanism to leverage the tragedy. DoD was not part of the wildland fire community. By contrast, the Battlement Creek fire in 1976 killed 4 USFS hotshots and led to reforms, including mandatory fire shelters. It's not the event. It's how it impacts society.
Quick post script (I should learn how to do threads).
For those who would like to know more about his remarkable career, Dante contributed his autobiography to Seis Vidas en Fuego. I relied on it for my biographical profile of him for Five Suns.
www.stephenpyne.com/attachments/...
For those who would like to know more about his remarkable career, Dante contributed his autobiography to Seis Vidas en Fuego. I relied on it for my biographical profile of him for Five Suns.
www.stephenpyne.com/attachments/...
November 28, 2024 at 10:49 PM
Quick post script (I should learn how to do threads).
For those who would like to know more about his remarkable career, Dante contributed his autobiography to Seis Vidas en Fuego. I relied on it for my biographical profile of him for Five Suns.
www.stephenpyne.com/attachments/...
For those who would like to know more about his remarkable career, Dante contributed his autobiography to Seis Vidas en Fuego. I relied on it for my biographical profile of him for Five Suns.
www.stephenpyne.com/attachments/...
Very sad news. Dante Arturo Rodriguez Trejo has passed away. Indefatigable, ardent, encyclopedic in his fire knowledge, one of the founders of modern fire management in Mexico, and for me a friend as well as a colleague - Dante will be missed.
Photo from 2011 Coahuila fires.
Photo from 2011 Coahuila fires.
November 28, 2024 at 10:21 PM
Very sad news. Dante Arturo Rodriguez Trejo has passed away. Indefatigable, ardent, encyclopedic in his fire knowledge, one of the founders of modern fire management in Mexico, and for me a friend as well as a colleague - Dante will be missed.
Photo from 2011 Coahuila fires.
Photo from 2011 Coahuila fires.
This is the norm, not the exception: Nature's exercise in slash and burn. Routine in the Yucatan Peninsula, even part of ecological expectations. The failure to fully clean up after the 1938 New England hurricane contributed to the massive fires of 1947. Photo of NH storm-slash in 1939
November 27, 2024 at 2:52 PM
This is the norm, not the exception: Nature's exercise in slash and burn. Routine in the Yucatan Peninsula, even part of ecological expectations. The failure to fully clean up after the 1938 New England hurricane contributed to the massive fires of 1947. Photo of NH storm-slash in 1939