The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America

(NYTBR) ... In the final pages, we learn that the Progressive Era vision of “people’s forests,” sustainably logged and conserved for all, was immediately betrayed. By 1920, Big Timber had co-opted the Forest Service, leading to industrial clear-cuts that “scalped” the land. “The Forest Service became the fire service,” Egan writes, “protecting trees so industry could cut them down later.” Pinchot, traveling as an old man to Western forests he’d fought so hard to save, was horrified to find a denuded expanse of mud and stumps. “Absolute devastation,” he wrote in his diary. Continued

Photo: Gifford Pinchot (Wikipedia)