You may ask yourself how it was that of the crew only Rumsey and Sallee survived. When asked why he didn't go straight for the top there and then, he answered that the ground was too rocky and steep and the fire was coming tooįast to dare to go at right angles to it. He immediately reversed direction and started back up the canyon,Īngling toward the top of the ridge on a steep grade. Gulch, it still looked about the same to them, 'confined to the upper third of the slope.'Īt the Review, Dodge estimated they had a 150- to 200-yard head start on the fire coming at them on the north side of the gulch. Neither Rumsey nor Sallee could see the fire that was now on their side of the gulch, but both could see smoke coming toward them over a hogback directly in front. Dodge takes only a few words to say what the 'it' was he saw next: 'WeĬontinued down the canyon for approximately five minutes before I could see that the fire had crossed Mann Gulch and was coming up the ridge toward us.' Rumsey and Sallee were young and they were crew and were carrying tools and rubbernecking at the fire across the gulch. Dodge was thirty-three and foreman and was supposed to see he was in front where he could see.īesides, he hadn't liked what he had seen when he looked down the canyon after he and Harrison had returned to the landing area to get something to eat, so his seeing powers were doubly on the alert. Rumsey and Sallee didn't, and probably none of the rest of the crew did either. A dark American idyll of which the language can be proud.'Robert M. It is the pinnacle of smokejumping literature and a classic work of 20th-century nonfiction.'John Holkeboer, The Wall Street Journal ' Young Men and Fire is a somber and poetic retelling of a tragic event. Maclean's last book will stir your heart and haunt your memory.'Timothy Foote, USA Today

In compelling language, both homely and elegant, Young Men and Fire miraculously combines a fascinating primer on fires and firefighting, a powerful, breathtakingly real reconstruction of a tragedy, and a meditation on writing, grief and human character. His description of the conflagration terrifies, but it is his battle with words, his effort to turn the story of the 13 men into tragedy that makes this book a classic.'from New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice, Best Books of 1992 Norman Maclean's search for the truth, which becomes an exploration of his own mortality, is more compelling even than his journey into the heart of the fire. 'A magnificent drama of writing, a tragedy that pays tribute to the dead and offers rescue to the living. It, was shut out from all but a small piece of the outside world. It roared from behind, below, and across, and the crew, inside

Norman Maclean, Young Men and Fire, excerpt

Young men and fire by norman maclean