Books
Five Suns: A Fire History of Mexico.
The five epochs of fire in Mexico, from Chicxulub crater to the 2011 Coahuila fires.
Seis Vidas en Fuego.
The fire autobiographies of six founding members of modern fire management in Mexico.
Pyrocene Park. A Journey Through the Fire History of Yosemite. Yosemite as microcosm of a place once informed by ice, now shaped by fire. A story of good fire lost, then partially restored.
Wild Visions. Wilderness as Image and Idea. Co-authored with Ben Minteer and Mark Klett. Modeled on the Sierra Club exhibit-format series with more contemporary imagining.
The Great Ages of Discovery. How Western Civilization Learned About a Wider World
Western civ's quest narrative, here framed by three great ages of discovery.
The Still-Burning Bush has been revised and will be reissued by Scribe Publications (cover image to left). The core of the book remains the 2003 bushfires and the curious career of the reincarnating firestick, but a new preface and epilogue update the story and a Sources section points to relevant references.
Fire: A Brief History, 2e - updated and revised, with a new chapter on the Pyrocene. Twenty years have passed since I wrote the original edition. Some items needed refreshing, some needed to be rewritten, and I have a chance to introduce the notion that we are entering a fire age, the Pyrocene, comparable to the ice ages of the Pleistocene. The best summary survey of fire around.
An Australian edition from NewSouth (see image to left) places Australia within the Pyrocene.
The books, with the last first:
Five Suns: A Fire History of Mexico (2024)
Pyrocene Park. A Journey Through the Fire History of Yosemite (2022)
Wild Visions. Wilderness as Image and Idea (2022)
The Pyrocene. How We Created an Age of Fire, and What Happens Next (2021)
The Great Ages of Discovery. How Western Civilization Learned About a Wider World (2021)
The Still-Burning Bush, 2nd edition, revised (2020)
Fire: A Brief History, 2nd edition, revised (2019)
To the Last Smoke, v. 9, Here and There (2018)
To the Last Smoke, v. 8, Slopovers: oak woodlands, Pacific Northwest, Alaska (2019)
To the Last Smoke, v. 7, The Northeast (2019)
Style and Story. Literary Methods for Writing Nonfiction (2018)
To the Last Smoke, v. 6, The Interior West (2018)
To the Last Smoke, v. 5, The Great Plains: A Fire Survey (2017)
To the Last Smoke, v. 4, The Southwest: A Fire Survey (2016)
To the Last Smoke, v. 3, The Northern Rockies: A Fire Survey (2016)
To the Last Smoke, v. 2, California: A Fire Survey (2016)
To the Last Smoke, v. 1, Florida: A Fire Survey (2016)
Between Two Fires: A Fire History of Contemporary America (2015)
After Preservation: Saving American Nature in the Age of Humans (2015). Co-editor: Ben Minteer
Fire on Earth: An Introduction (2013). Co-authors: Andrew Sc0tt, David Bowman, William Bond, Martin Alexander
Fire: Nature and Culture (2012)
The Last Lost World: Ice Ages, Human Origins, and the Invention of the Pleistocene (2012). Co-author: Lydia V. Pyne
Voyager: Seeking Newer Worlds in the Third Great Age of Discovery (2010)
America's Fires: A Historical Context for Policy and Practice (2010)
Voice and Vision. A Guide to Writing History and Other Serious Nonfiction (2009)
Awful Splendour: A Fire History of Canada (2007)
The Still-Burning Bush (2006)
Brittlebush Valley (2005). Self-published.
Tending Fire. Coping with America's Wildland Fires (2004)
Smokechasing (2003)
Year of the Fires: The Story of the Great Fires of 1910 (2001)
Fire: A Brief History (2001).
How the Canyon Became Grand. A Short History (1998)
Vestal Fire. An Environmental History, Told Through Fire, of Europe and Europe's Encounter with the World (1997)
America's Fires. Management on Wildlands and Forests (1997). Out of print.
Introduction of Wildland Fire, 2nd ed (1996). Co-authors: Patricia Andrews, Richard Laven. Out of print. PDF available upon request.
World Fire. The Culture of Fire on Earth (1995)
Burning Bush. A Fire History of Australia (1991)
Fire on the Rim. A Firefighter's Season at the Grand Canyon (1989)
Wildland Fires and Nuclear Winters: Selected Reconstruction of Historic Large Fires (1986). Co-author: Philip Omi.
The Ice. A Journey to Antarctica (1986)
Introduction to Wildland Fire ((1984). Out of print.
Dutton's Point. An Intellectual History of the Grand Canyon (1983). Our of print.
Fire in America. A Cultural History of Wildland and Rural Fire (1982)
Grove Karl Gilbert. A Great Engine of Research (1980)