Few nonfiction wildfire books capture a moment in fire history as vividly as Young Men and Fire. With the precision of an archivist and the heart of a storyteller, Norman Maclean investigates the 1949 Mann Gulch fire near Helena, Montana, which claimed the lives of 13 young smokejumpers. The book chronicles Maclean’s decades-long pursuit to understand what happened on that steep, wind-blasted slope. 

Blending survivor accounts, on-the-ground fieldwork, and emerging fire science, Maclean reconstructs the decisions and conditions that led to disaster. His work revealed that the fire created its own weather – a behavior not well understood at the time – and helped shape how we think about extreme fire today. 

Part memoir, part detective, Young Men and Fire is as much about the fire itself as it is about the enduring human drive to make sense of the senseless.