What is Reddit's opinion of Young Men and Fire?

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yeah. i'm not sure if that's a relatively new term or something but we just called them all fire whirls. that is what I'm talking about. They do sound awful. i didn't realize they themselves cause so much damage, i was just told that if you were in a part of the fire producing that, then you're probably already boxed in and about to die. i can't find confirmation anywhere so maybe it was just some horror stories our WF trainers like to tell students or something. I'm reminded of the book Young Men and Fire by Norman Maclean (of A River Runs Through It fame if you don't recognize the name) that tells the story of the Mann Gulch fire. Norman, I believe was able to interview the IC on that jump (i forget his name). He may have talked about it in that book but it's been so long I can't remember. Great book. Very heartbreaking though.

Judging from your mindset, I strongly recommend Young Men and Fire, the fateful story of a group of early smokejumpers who died to a blowup fire in Montana.

It's an exhaustive research account that takes into account all the energy factors of the situation from the way the fire was fed through wind, fuel, brush (grass as opposed to canopy) and the more dramatic energy factor of the boys who ran hundreds of yards up a near vertical incline in what they knew would be the last footrace of their lives. He talks about which ones went which ways, why they veered and what places they chose for refuge, and then tries in the most humane way possible to explain why the few lived and the rest died.

If you want to read a story about how fast-moving and deadly wildfires can be, read Norman Maclean's 'Young Men And Fire' about the Mann Gulch Fire in 1949.

FWIW, Norman Maclean is the same guy who wrote 'A River Runs Through It.' He's no slouch as a writer, and the subject matter/narrative is at once informative and terrifying.

Edit: From Wiki: >"Dodge stated the updrafts generated by the fire moving past him were so intense they caused him to be "lifted off the ground" several times. Of those crew members caught in the oxygen demanding main fire, unburnt patches underneath their bodies indicated they had suffocated for lack of air before the fire caught them."

I'm pretty amazed nobody has mentioned autobiographies (or biographies if there is not an autobiography of that person) since you say you like reading about what other people have been through.

I would also recommend Jon Krakauer - He wrote Into the Wild (based on a real person/also a movie if you didn't know), Into Thin Air (his own experience in climbing Everest during one of the deadliest climbing seasons on record), and Where Men Win Glory (excellent book about events leading up to PatTillman's death and ensuing cover-up). They're all well written, easy to read, and fascinating non-fiction books.

And FWIW, the book that made me switch to the printed word is Young Men and Fire - a book about a wild fire in Mann Gulch that more or less defied physics and killed the smoke-jumpers that parachuted in to fight it.

Great book for anyone interested in guys who fight these kind of fires: Young Men and Fire by Norman MacLean. Some things never change.

http://www.amazon.com/Young-Men-Fire-Norman-Maclean/dp/0226500624