Young Men & Fire Study Guide & Notes

Young Men & Fire Plot Summary

Preview of Young Men & Fire Summary:

It was just after August 10, 1949 when Norman Maclean witnessed the Mann Gulch fire and became tied to it. The tragedy that killed 13 of the U.S. Forest Service's Smokejumpers would become a near obsession for the author who would work on finding impossible answers until he became too ill to write any more. The book was published posthumously in 1992, having been edited but not truly altered. That year, it won the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Maclean was at his cabin in Seely Lake, Montana when he learned about the fire in Mann Gulch. As a former member of the U.S. Forest Service, Maclean had to see it for himself. After it was all done, thirteen Smokejumpers from the United States Forest Service had burned to death when a blowup occurred at the top of a ridge. Most of the Smokejumpers were college boys.

Maclean spent decades...
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