Meeting Timothy Egan

Timothy Egan is an investigative reporter and blogger for the New York Times. He's a Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of "The Worst of Times," describing survivors of the Great Dust Bowl of the 1930s. He spoke today at the Tucson Festival of Books about his latest book, "The Big Burn," the devastating 1910 wildfire that terrorized western Montana, northern Idaho and far eastern Washington.

He wrote the book because as a kid living in eastern Washington, he remembered family vacations in the area and seeing burned tree stumps still standing from that fire. "Descendants of that fire still talk about that burn."

I sat in the front row, in awe of his passion for his work. He spoke about the 1910 fire and of President Theodore Roosevelt's determination in the years before that (he left office in 1909) to get the Forest Service created. By 1910 under Taft Congress was eager to cut off all funding for the Forest Service. Although only around 100 people died that time, it was the largest fire ever to haunt our lands. As Egan said, "we can thank the Big Burn for our National Forests." Before the Big Burn Congress had slashed funding for its survival.

Flash backs of those northern Rockie forests of last summer came back to me. "You can still see old strands of burned cedar from that fire" said Egan. I saw a LOT of burned tree stumps in western Montana, but most were from more recent fires.

He also mentioned that a more current threat are the ash beetles killing all the trees. "You can see large strands of rust-colored trees in Montana from that beetle" said Egan.

I somehow managed to get to the front of the autograph line. With me I had my advanced copy of his book. "Where did you get this?" he asked me, as his book hasn't been released in paperback yet.

"I got it from Amazon" I told him, "I write reviews and I was the first one to write a review on this book. You wrote this book just like a raging wildfire, slow at first and then culminating into the big blow in the middle before the fire dies out in the end." That review to date is my biggest-scoring review on Amazon, although, I must admit, it is far from scholarly.

Egan lit up with a smile. "I remember that review! You're the one who got my book sold!" Although I think Egan is exaggerating there, (he after all didn't win a Pulitzer because of anything I wrote about him) he shook my hand and was genuinely grateful for my words.

His next book is due out in two years. I can't wait to read it!