Roughly one decade after the devastating Cerro Grande fire of May 2000, a new book has been published that aims to tell the complete story of “the most costly wildfire in U.S. history.” Inferno by Committee: The True Story of the Cerro Grande (Los Alamos) Fire, America’s Worst Prescribed Fire Disaster is an in-depth study and “white-knuckle narrative” of the prescribed burn that began on the eastern rim of the Valles Caldera and proceeded to destroy hundreds of homes in nearby Los Alamos, as well as many structures at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, forcing a lengthy evacuation of the town and neighboring White Rock.
The 345-page book, published by Trafford Publishing, is written by Tom Ribe, a fire fighter and science journalist who also serves as the executive director of Caldera Action, a Valles Caldera advocacy group.
You can buy this book online by clicking here. You can also buy it by clicking here to visit the author’s web site, which also contains lots of other information regarding the fire.
The Los Alamos Monitor wrote that Ribe’s book is “useful and valuable to readers,” while informing the public “everything they wanted to know about the dynamics of Cerro Grande fire and the methods to fight it but were afraid to ask.” Click here to read the complete review. Below is an excerpt:
Ribe doesn’t just look back 10 years ago to the first week of May 2000, he scans all the way back to about 8,000 years ago to the area’s first residents. Furthermore, he examines how, over time, humans significantly change the landscape – whether it was through grazing or logging or politics. He discusses at length about the differences between the National Forest Service’s philosophy of maintaining the land and the National Park Service’s beliefs.
After heavily sifting through the ashes of time, Ribe presents an argument that is applicable now, tomorrow and forever after. He stresses the importance of environmental stewardship but also the need to exercise stewardship amongst humans. A lot of problems can be resolved by good teamwork, unity and taking the time and effort to make the right decisions for everyone.
The Santa Fe New Mexican also reviewed the book (click here to read the full review):
Forest-fire suppression can lead to superfires like the one that scorched Los Alamos a decade ago, says Tom Ribe of Santa Fe in his new book. Inferno by Committee calls the Cerro Grande Fire the “worst prescribed fire disaster” in U.S. history.
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According to Ribe, the underlying cause was that timber, brush and other potential fuels were allowed to build up around the security-obsessed research laboratory: “Never, apparently, did (J. Robert) Oppenheimer and his army assistants consider the wildfire-prone nature of the Pajarito Plateau and the danger forest fire could pose to the laboratory and its support community as they built the facilities in a place the Spanish called Quemazon or ‘big burn.’ ”
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Ribe, a biologist, ecologist and journalist who has worked as a wild-land firefighter for more than 20 years, hammers home the message that government bureaucrats for years ignored warnings about the dangerous buildups of flammable fuels around Los Alamos. Realizations that followed, he says, have stirred federal agencies to communicate better on wildfire issues and to assign more people to controlled burns.
