The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America is about Teddy Roosevelt's attempt to save the magnificent landscapes of the West . Roosevelt used his presidency as a springboard to campaign for the protection of our forests, and in doing so, he created the Forest Service out of that battle. In this book, Timothy Egan explores the Northern Rockies to analyze the worst wildfire in U.S. history. This disaster is known as the "Big Burn," the 1910 fire quickly engulfed three million acres of land in Idaho, Montana and Washington, burned border towns to the ground and left a cloud of smoke so thick that it hung over several towns even after the flames had receded. been extinguished.Egan begins this story about the Big Burn of 1910 with the story of how the United States Forest Service came to be. He says it grew out of a very strange partnership between two people: Teddy Roosevelt and his chief forester, Gifford Pinchot. Although they were very different, they also shared many things in common. Both were born and raised in wealthy families in Manhattan. A bit like Roos...