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582 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1986

❝𝑭𝑬𝑾 𝑻𝑯𝑰𝑵𝑮𝑺 in the American West feel more omnipresent than the threat of wildfire in summer and autumn. Highway signs inform passers-by of daily changes in the degree of fire risk. Law enforcement officials urge neighbourhood pyromaniacs to be careful when setting off fireworks each Fourth of July, lest one spark an uncontrollable blaze. Smoke dirties the air and, sometimes, gives the sky an apocalyptic orange glow. Wildfires are a natural part of the landscape in the West. But climate change has further dehydrated an arid region, priming forests to burn. The following books—and one podcast—help to explain the dryness of the West, the evolution of America’s relationship to fire, and the ways in which bad policy and planning have put growing numbers of people in harm’s way.The article next recommends The Dreamt Land: Chasing Water and Dust Across California, and I’ll continue the article’s recommendations in my presumptive ‘review’ of that book. That ‘review’ will also link to that podcast, and its recommendation.
Cadillac Desert: The American West and its Disappearing Water. By Marc Reisner. Penguin; 672 pages; $20. Vintage; £14
It is hard to understand wildfires in the western states without first learning about the arid nature of the region. There remains no better book on water in the West than Marc Reisner’s “Cadillac Desert”, from 1986. It is a sprawling history of how the Bureau of Reclamation made the modern West possible by erecting a vast network of dams, reservoirs and pipelines to carry water from wet places to dry ones. But the bureau’s frenetic construction enabled the overuse of western rivers by cities and farms, and so further parched the landscape. Water policy can be impenetrable. Yet Reisner brings the complicated story to life by introducing readers to characters such as the “Renaissance man” who explored the length of the Colorado River, and the politicians who stole the water that allowed Los Angeles to blossom.❞
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