Fully Updated and Revised, Inferno by Committee
In 2000 one of the most consequential forest fires in modern America burned 250 houses in Los Alamos, New Mexico. The widely misunderstood Cerro Grande Fire started by a prescribed fire on Bandelier National Monument and spread to the Santa Fe National Forest and Los Alamos. Why did this fire get so fierce? Who was responsible for the size and intensity of the blaze?
Inferno by Committee is a fully revised examination of the mega fires in northern New Mexico since 1996. The book looks at the southern Rocky Mountains and three big stand-replacement fires that transformed northern New Mexico’s landscape – Cerro Grande, Hermit Peak, and Las Conchas Fires. All these are fires were greatly worsened by climate change but they fed on forests that had been mismanaged by people starting in the 1880s.
This book looks at the ecological history of the Jemez Mountains and the “committee” of people over the decades that created conditions ripe for extreme fire. The book takes apart the Cerro Grande burn crew’s mistakes and compares them to the mistakes made by the US Forest Service crews on what became the Hermit Peak/Calf Canyon Fire of 2022. We talk about how fire is managed, what the various federal agencies do and their history in the Jemez Mountains.
Based on years of research and interviews with key players in science and fire management, the book is a primer for anyone wanting to understand why fires are so big today and why they are transforming forests into brush and grasslands on a permanent basis.
You get get your copy here:
Or from this nonprofit bookstore:
https://bookshop.org/p/books/inferno-by-committee-tom-ribe/21828252?ean=9781446124406
Thank you.
Tom Ribe