Steve Pyne
@sjpyne.bsky.social
Writer, fire guy (aka pyromantic), exploration historian, urban farmer. Recent books include "Pyrocene Park" and "Five Suns: A Fire History of Mexico."
Website: www.stephenpyne.com
Website: www.stephenpyne.com
As reports tally up the 2025 fires, here's a long view back. I've updated and abridged Vestal Fire - now 40% as long, with half the new text completely rewritten, reorganized, and reconceptualized. The narrative still includes Russia. Should be published in spring, 2026.
October 16, 2025 at 2:24 PM
As reports tally up the 2025 fires, here's a long view back. I've updated and abridged Vestal Fire - now 40% as long, with half the new text completely rewritten, reorganized, and reconceptualized. The narrative still includes Russia. Should be published in spring, 2026.
Reposted by Steve Pyne
New paper: The role of fire on Earth
doi.org/10.1093/bios... BioScience @aibsbiology.bsky.social
Fire affects all major components of the Earth system: atmosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere, anthroposphere, & biosphere. Fire is an intrinsic factor on our planet.
🧪🌍🔥🌳🌿🌐 wildfire
doi.org/10.1093/bios... BioScience @aibsbiology.bsky.social
Fire affects all major components of the Earth system: atmosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere, anthroposphere, & biosphere. Fire is an intrinsic factor on our planet.
🧪🌍🔥🌳🌿🌐 wildfire
August 25, 2025 at 10:59 PM
New paper: The role of fire on Earth
doi.org/10.1093/bios... BioScience @aibsbiology.bsky.social
Fire affects all major components of the Earth system: atmosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere, anthroposphere, & biosphere. Fire is an intrinsic factor on our planet.
🧪🌍🔥🌳🌿🌐 wildfire
doi.org/10.1093/bios... BioScience @aibsbiology.bsky.social
Fire affects all major components of the Earth system: atmosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere, anthroposphere, & biosphere. Fire is an intrinsic factor on our planet.
🧪🌍🔥🌳🌿🌐 wildfire
Thread: August 20, the anniversary of the Big Blowup, a catalyst for the American way of wildland fire.
(top) Post-season map of the 1910 season, with the Blowup circled in red.
(bottom) Photo of the mine adit where ranger Ed Pulaski held his crew at gunpoint.
(top) Post-season map of the 1910 season, with the Blowup circled in red.
(bottom) Photo of the mine adit where ranger Ed Pulaski held his crew at gunpoint.
August 20, 2025 at 2:09 AM
Thread: August 20, the anniversary of the Big Blowup, a catalyst for the American way of wildland fire.
(top) Post-season map of the 1910 season, with the Blowup circled in red.
(bottom) Photo of the mine adit where ranger Ed Pulaski held his crew at gunpoint.
(top) Post-season map of the 1910 season, with the Blowup circled in red.
(bottom) Photo of the mine adit where ranger Ed Pulaski held his crew at gunpoint.
Shouldn't be a surprise - the fire practices of indigenous peoples in the highly fire-prone SW could locally override even climate signals. But that is what received understanding claimed. Here's the data to bring the Ndee into alignment with other premodern peoples.
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Tree rings reveal persistent Western Apache (Ndee) fire stewardship and niche construction in the American Southwest | PNAS
Identifying the influence of low-density Indigenous populations in paleofire records
has been methodologically challenging. In the Southwest United...
www.pnas.org
August 11, 2025 at 9:46 PM
Shouldn't be a surprise - the fire practices of indigenous peoples in the highly fire-prone SW could locally override even climate signals. But that is what received understanding claimed. Here's the data to bring the Ndee into alignment with other premodern peoples.
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Thread. Yet another avatar for Dragon Bravo - burning an isolated mesa in the Canyon, this time The Dragon itself (one of the Canyon's most apt placenames).
August 10, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Thread. Yet another avatar for Dragon Bravo - burning an isolated mesa in the Canyon, this time The Dragon itself (one of the Canyon's most apt placenames).
Dragon Bravo keeps reincarnating - now it's a Canyon fire, sending a giant talon eastward from the Walhalla Plateau across the Canyon at its widest. Always had a Canyon fire or two each season, but - really?
August 9, 2025 at 3:30 PM
Dragon Bravo keeps reincarnating - now it's a Canyon fire, sending a giant talon eastward from the Walhalla Plateau across the Canyon at its widest. Always had a Canyon fire or two each season, but - really?
In grad school I studied history of science, geomorphology, American West, and intellectual-cultural history, all aligning with the history of exploration, of which Great Ages makes a conceptual capstone. When I decided to write fire, my exploration stuff was my quasi-model. Just released in pb
July 31, 2025 at 10:31 PM
In grad school I studied history of science, geomorphology, American West, and intellectual-cultural history, all aligning with the history of exploration, of which Great Ages makes a conceptual capstone. When I decided to write fire, my exploration stuff was my quasi-model. Just released in pb
Quite a summer for European fire.
I'm reminded of a passage from A.C.Clarke's 2001: "Beyond the reaches of sea and land and air and space lay the realms of fire.." Not a bad account of the maturing Pyrocene.
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...
I'm reminded of a passage from A.C.Clarke's 2001: "Beyond the reaches of sea and land and air and space lay the realms of fire.." Not a bad account of the maturing Pyrocene.
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...
Thousands in Greece and Turkey evacuate as winds and heat fan wildfires
Czech firefighters and Italian aircraft join rescue effort in Greece, and firefighter among those killed in Turkey
www.theguardian.com
July 31, 2025 at 5:34 PM
Quite a summer for European fire.
I'm reminded of a passage from A.C.Clarke's 2001: "Beyond the reaches of sea and land and air and space lay the realms of fire.." Not a bad account of the maturing Pyrocene.
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...
I'm reminded of a passage from A.C.Clarke's 2001: "Beyond the reaches of sea and land and air and space lay the realms of fire.." Not a bad account of the maturing Pyrocene.
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...
Thread on Dragon Bravo, which continues its serial reincarnations. Began as lightning fire in confine and contain mode (escaped). Morphed into urban fire (incinerated park's developed area). Swelled into proto-megafire (blew over major containment line). Now a free-burning megafire.
July 30, 2025 at 11:43 AM
Thread on Dragon Bravo, which continues its serial reincarnations. Began as lightning fire in confine and contain mode (escaped). Morphed into urban fire (incinerated park's developed area). Swelled into proto-megafire (blew over major containment line). Now a free-burning megafire.
Dragon Bravo fire - blowing, going, gone. The Kaibab Plateau as microcosm of Earth, consumed in a slow-motion Ragnarok. This is where my life as a scholar on fire began. There is no way I cannot not take on this fire as a project and try to give it context - would be professional malfeasance.
July 28, 2025 at 2:27 AM
Dragon Bravo fire - blowing, going, gone. The Kaibab Plateau as microcosm of Earth, consumed in a slow-motion Ragnarok. This is where my life as a scholar on fire began. There is no way I cannot not take on this fire as a project and try to give it context - would be professional malfeasance.
A fire that seemed to begin as a demo of how not to do confine-and-contain, complete with urban conflagration, is evolving into a master class on big-box-and-burn. Interesting cameo of the American wildland fire scene.
inciweb.wildfire.gov/incident-inf...
inciweb.wildfire.gov/incident-inf...
| InciWeb
Incidents Page of for the Inciweb site.
inciweb.wildfire.gov
July 24, 2025 at 1:15 PM
A fire that seemed to begin as a demo of how not to do confine-and-contain, complete with urban conflagration, is evolving into a master class on big-box-and-burn. Interesting cameo of the American wildland fire scene.
inciweb.wildfire.gov/incident-inf...
inciweb.wildfire.gov/incident-inf...
Reposted by Steve Pyne
The Turkeyfeather Fire in the Gila Wilderness, NM has burned as a low-severity fire over about 24,000 acres (so far). This is a continuation of a fire regime that existed for millennia before the 20th century. This 🧵reviews the fire history of the Gila, as my colleagues and I have studied it. 1/18
July 20, 2025 at 1:36 PM
The Turkeyfeather Fire in the Gila Wilderness, NM has burned as a low-severity fire over about 24,000 acres (so far). This is a continuation of a fire regime that existed for millennia before the 20th century. This 🧵reviews the fire history of the Gila, as my colleagues and I have studied it. 1/18
Wondering what I might say about the WU scene now that it has gotten so technical (a good development, actually). Maybe contribute to its redefinition? How about - Owning the WUI: HIZ, HERZ, ITZ [https://www.stephenpyne.com/blog]
July 19, 2025 at 9:27 PM
Wondering what I might say about the WU scene now that it has gotten so technical (a good development, actually). Maybe contribute to its redefinition? How about - Owning the WUI: HIZ, HERZ, ITZ [https://www.stephenpyne.com/blog]
Another round with poop in the coop - another free-associating parody....
April 11, 2025 at 3:22 AM
Another round with poop in the coop - another free-associating parody....
Amazing how the mind free associates when cleaning up chicken and sheep poop ...
April 10, 2025 at 2:37 AM
Amazing how the mind free associates when cleaning up chicken and sheep poop ...
Amid wildfires and political arson - a memento from a gentler fire era. A smokechaser lamp (yes, it works). What happens when a crew sits around the fire cache during a season-ending storm.
March 18, 2025 at 12:10 PM
Amid wildfires and political arson - a memento from a gentler fire era. A smokechaser lamp (yes, it works). What happens when a crew sits around the fire cache during a season-ending storm.
For those who would prefer to hear rather than read the fire history of Mexico, Five Suns audio is 50% off. Same great narrative.
www.audiobooks.com/promotions/p...
www.audiobooks.com/promotions/p...
50% OFF Five Suns: A Fire History of Mexico
A climate defined by wet and dry seasons, a mostly mountainous terrain, a biota prone to disturbances, a human geography characterized by a diversity of peoples all of whom rely on burning in one form...
www.audiobooks.com
March 16, 2025 at 2:39 PM
For those who would prefer to hear rather than read the fire history of Mexico, Five Suns audio is 50% off. Same great narrative.
www.audiobooks.com/promotions/p...
www.audiobooks.com/promotions/p...
Fennimore Cooper's 1830s social novels center on Aristabulus Bragg, who thinks everything can be bought and sold and he should have most of it, and Steadfast Dodge, who does "not know his own meaning, except as he felt envy of all above him.” Brag and Doge - with us still.
March 5, 2025 at 1:33 PM
Fennimore Cooper's 1830s social novels center on Aristabulus Bragg, who thinks everything can be bought and sold and he should have most of it, and Steadfast Dodge, who does "not know his own meaning, except as he felt envy of all above him.” Brag and Doge - with us still.
On rebuilding after urban fires - here's Baudette MN , before and after the fire of Oct 7, 1910 (the other Great Fire of that year). Reconstruction was rapid for both humanitarian and economic reasons - winter was imminent and property values were threatened.
February 20, 2025 at 8:06 PM
On rebuilding after urban fires - here's Baudette MN , before and after the fire of Oct 7, 1910 (the other Great Fire of that year). Reconstruction was rapid for both humanitarian and economic reasons - winter was imminent and property values were threatened.
This bears an uncanny likeness to the story of Little Smokey climbing a tree to escape a forest fire. Hmm. Barry the Bruin - Smokey the Bear for the WU? (Can figurines and comic books be far behind? Maybe an AI-generated Eddy Arnold singing a revised ballad?)
www.cnn.com/2025/02/10/u...
www.cnn.com/2025/02/10/u...
California man finds 525-pound animal under his home after Los Angeles fires. The bear goes by Barry | CNN
A Southern California man returned home after evacuating last month’s devastating Los Angeles-area wildfires to discover an unexpected resident lurking beneath it.
www.cnn.com
February 10, 2025 at 10:23 PM
This bears an uncanny likeness to the story of Little Smokey climbing a tree to escape a forest fire. Hmm. Barry the Bruin - Smokey the Bear for the WU? (Can figurines and comic books be far behind? Maybe an AI-generated Eddy Arnold singing a revised ballad?)
www.cnn.com/2025/02/10/u...
www.cnn.com/2025/02/10/u...
The Conversation asked for an update of my 2019 article on the Pyrocene. As the saying goes, all models are wrong but some are useful. Here's a thumbnail of my understanding of this metaphor-model. (I had no hand in the title.)
theconversation.com/human-use-of...
theconversation.com/human-use-of...
Human use of fire has produced an era of uncontrolled burning: Welcome to the Pyrocene
Humans have become a geologic force by cooking the planet – using fire on a scale that is altering land, water, air and ecosystems.
theconversation.com
January 22, 2025 at 2:41 PM
The Conversation asked for an update of my 2019 article on the Pyrocene. As the saying goes, all models are wrong but some are useful. Here's a thumbnail of my understanding of this metaphor-model. (I had no hand in the title.)
theconversation.com/human-use-of...
theconversation.com/human-use-of...
The Hollywood Reporter asked for 700 words for a special section on the fires they have just published. Something looking at the fire itself.So I repurposed some sentences on 'fire as biology' and gave the notion a long leash. Alas, the title is *not* mine. www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/local-n...
What Fire Wants: Understanding the Enemy
What long has been considered merely a chemical reaction perhaps is best compared to another all-too-familiar scourge — a virus.
www.hollywoodreporter.com
January 19, 2025 at 2:31 AM
The Hollywood Reporter asked for 700 words for a special section on the fires they have just published. Something looking at the fire itself.So I repurposed some sentences on 'fire as biology' and gave the notion a long leash. Alas, the title is *not* mine. www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/local-n...
Disaster fires invite photo ops from politicians. One of my favorites: Richard Nixon, then between jobs, in shirt and tie, standing on a shake-shingle roof, holding a garden hose, staring vapidly - somewhere, while smoke rises in the background from the Bel Air-Brentwood conflagration in 1961.
January 12, 2025 at 1:49 AM
Disaster fires invite photo ops from politicians. One of my favorites: Richard Nixon, then between jobs, in shirt and tie, standing on a shake-shingle roof, holding a garden hose, staring vapidly - somewhere, while smoke rises in the background from the Bel Air-Brentwood conflagration in 1961.
A thoughtful meditation and reminder of the scale of the reforms needed.It's not just that people are moving into fire-prone lands; in Mediterranean Europe the problem is people moving out of fire-prone lands.It's not where you live but how you live on the land. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/11/o...
Opinion | The Best Time to Fireproof Los Angeles Was Yesterday
Can a city lose an entire neighborhood now and simply shuffle on, dragging the local memory like a ghost limb?
www.nytimes.com
January 11, 2025 at 12:22 PM
A thoughtful meditation and reminder of the scale of the reforms needed.It's not just that people are moving into fire-prone lands; in Mediterranean Europe the problem is people moving out of fire-prone lands.It's not where you live but how you live on the land. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/11/o...
Ok, an anecdotal image - but this is what structure protection looked like in the 1935 Malibu fires. What a change in scale and character - of fire, of the built environment, of firefighting capacity (CCC boys then). Only the inevitability of fire in some form is constant.
January 11, 2025 at 2:41 AM
Ok, an anecdotal image - but this is what structure protection looked like in the 1935 Malibu fires. What a change in scale and character - of fire, of the built environment, of firefighting capacity (CCC boys then). Only the inevitability of fire in some form is constant.