![]() ![]() A close friend of fellow conservationist Teddy Roosevelt, the two men passionately believed that unless they acted quickly, the forces of unbridled capitalism would devour their beloved American wilderness once and for all. They served under the founder of the Forest Service, Gifford Pinchot, an eccentric patrician with an almost missionary zeal for conserving America’s public lands. These first employees of the Forest Service were given the monumental task of managing the newly-created national forests in the Northern Rockies. In the spring of 1905, the first group of fresh-faced graduates of Yale’s Forestry School began to arrive in the bawdy frontier towns of the West. As America tries to manage its fire-prone landscapes in the 21st century, The Big Burn provides a cautionary tale of heroism and sacrifice, arrogance and greed, hubris and, ultimately, humility, in the face of nature’s frightening power. Forest Service with a catastrophe that would define the agency and the nation’s fire policy for much of the 20th century. The fire devoured more than three million acres in 36 hours, confronting the fledgling U.S. Inspired by Timothy Egan’s best-selling book, The Big Burn is the dramatic story of the massive wildfire that swept across the Northern Rockies in the summer of 1910. ![]() Premieres Tuesday, February 3, 2015, 9 p.m. ![]()
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