The Fire Line

April 1, 2016
New York Times Phoenix bureau chief Santos looks into a lightning-caused blaze that killed 19 Arizona firefighters in the summer of 2013. Early on in her first book, the author notes that while the fire itself was the agent of death, it was a string of miscommunications and guesswork--preventable but, in retrospect, seemingly inevitable human error--that sent the Granite Mountain Hotshots to their doom. Determining responsibility for those miscommunications and the poor judgment that resulted has riven the city of Prescott, the Hotshots' home, and especially its politicians. When considering whether to disband the elite unit, "the only one to have a city as its employer, and only one of two to operate under the auspices of a structural fire department," city officials had to wrestle more with questions of money and liability than they did the rightness or the necessity of keeping such a team on the books. (There was talk, Santos writes, of privatizing the venture, an idea that is still current.) The events of the fire were well-covered in the national media, in part by this author. Less well known are some of these post-mortem matters, her coverage of which makes a valuable contribution to the literature of disaster preparedness and management--and given that wildfire is a growing problem in the ever more arid West, that literature needs all the good work it can get. As a narrative, though, the book is less satisfying; the prose is flat, and it has all the hallmarks of a stretched-out newspaper story, with the usual cliches, set pieces, and stock descriptions: "Christopher MacKenzie, thirty, was single and a bit of a Don Juan, with a huge shoe collection, entering his ninth fire season"; "Doppler radars look like giant golf balls perched atop squat buildings or steel towers"; "Those were the ingredients for the disaster that was about to unfold." It's no Young Men and Fire, but Santos provides a good summary of terrible events and their aftermath.

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April 1, 2016
Deaths of forest firefighters have generated a popular, if grim, literature: Young Men and Fire by Norman Maclean (1992) and Fire on the Mountain by John Maclean (1999) are prominent examples. Santos' contribution to the genre concerns the June 2013 disaster in Arizona, which she covered for the New York Times. Gleaning personal details from in-depth interviews with family and friends of the 19 men who died, she strives to capture their temperaments and what led them to become wilderness firefighters. The occupation is prized; entry is competitive, and the work is demanding. Named the Granite Mountain Hotshots, they were summoned to battle a fire near Prescott, Arizona. In her fine-grained style, Santos portentously documents their activities the night before they marched into action. Switching to the enemy, Santos explains forest-fire behavior, accelerating the drama by tracking that particular blaze. The disaster unfolded quickly: sensing danger, leader Eric Marsh guided his men away from the flames, but the inferno trapped them within an hour. A conscientious and complete researcher, Santos will leave readers awed, somber, and moved.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)