Nearly one hundred years ago, August of 1910, the wooded mountains of Washington, Idaho, and Montana were scorched with a roaring inferno forest fire that destroyed whole towns and killed hundreds of people.

I had never heard about it until I read Tim Egan's "The Big Burn" ("Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America"). The full title made me wonder how a fire could save America. Here's how.

Roosevelt and Gilbert Pinchot collaborated to declare a vast portion of the West "National Forest Land". They recruited a handful of newly trained rangers on a miniscule budget. They had to fight with Congress for every nickel. Train and land "robber barons" ignored the declaration and continued to plunder the great forests. Rangers were helpless in stopping them.

With a drought and strong winds aiding, small fires erupted into an enormous conflagration. Even a force of 100 times more forest rangers couldn't have halted the "big burn". But so many of them heroically defending the forest and towns--and died--that the American public switched allegiences, becoming backers of the National forests idea. That's how it became "the fire that saved America".

Good book. I've said it before. Theodore Roosevelt was a great man and a great president. Bully!