Ghosts of the Fireground: Echoes of the Great Peshtigo Fire and the Calling of a Wildland Firefighter
Author: Peter M Leschak
A firefighter's remarkable first–hand account of the lessons of tragedy, courage and faith in the epic struggle between man and fire.
In April of 2000, on the brink of one of the most ferocious fire seasons ever recorded, Peter Leschak discovers the diary of Father Pernin, one of the few survivors of a wildfire that hit Peshtigo, Wisconsin, in 1871. Throughout this harrowing summer, Leschak takes us through Pernin's dangerous clash with the Great Peshtigo Fire while reflecting on his own journey from the ministry to fireground leader. In so doing, Leschak captures the sacred and mysterious pull of the fireground and breathes life into one of the most astounding and little–known disasters to ever hit this country.
Ghosts of the Fireground weaves seamlessly between Father Pernin's struggle with an inferno so hot that not even the Peshtigo River guaranteed safety to Peter Leschak's breathtaking frontline battles 130 years later, offering a compelling look at the courageous and noble pursuit that is wildland firefighting.
The New Yorker
If almost no one has heard of the Great Peshtigo Fire of 1871, which consumed an entire Wisconsin town and killed twelve hundred people, that's because it occurred at the same time as the Great Chicago Fire. But Peshtigo was a far more potent example of just how devastating and uncontrollable fire can be, which is why it fascinates the author. In this curious blend of history and autobiography, Leschak, himself a wildland firefighter, intersperses an account of the Peshtigo disaster with stories of his own experience on the fireground. The result is often formally awkward, but the material is gripping, and Leschak does an excellent job of evoking both the terror and the majesty of a raging fire. In clean, understated prose, he describes the world of the firefighter, in which endless days of waiting give way to hours of intensity and exaltation. Firefighters, Leschak suggests, may not like fires, but they're never happier than when they're in the middle of one.
Publishers Weekly
What is it about their work that makes firefighters so devoted addicted, even to the calling? Leschak (Trial by Wildfire), a 20-year veteran wildfire fighter, attempts to answer this question in his contemplative memoir. He focuses primarily on the spring of 2000, when he led a helitack crew (a rapid-response helicopter unit) battling especially fierce and persistent wildfires in western Montana. That was also when Leschak discovered the diaries of Father Peter Pernin, a survivor of the 1871 fire that leveled Peshtigo, Wis. He threads the story of the Peshtigo fire throughout the book, along with other historical facts about American forest fires and the formation of a wildfire subculture. As he describes the dangers faced by his own team, the plainspoken, articulate Leschak explores the psychology and spirituality of fire fighting particularly the exhilaration of life-threatening situations citing sources as diverse as Carl Jung, Friedrich Nietzsche, William James and Walker Percy. Leschak had trained to become an evangelical minister in East Texas, and he recalls his conversion to evangelism at age 18, after listening to a radio preacher; his growing disillusionment with the narrow-mindedness of his Bible college; and his revelatory discovery of his true life' s work. In spite of its prominence in the subtitle, the story of the Peshtigo fire is woven casually and sporadically into the book; those looking for a sustained history should turn to another book on the Peshtigo fire being publishing the same month (Firestorm at Peshtigo, Forecasts, June 24). Nonetheless, Leschak' s action scenes crackle with energy, and his down-to-earth account of his spiritual quest should strike a chord with many. (Aug.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
From Leschak (Letters from Side Lake, not reviewed, etc.), a good look into the mind of one wildland firefighter, his motivations and methods of operation. Though there are episodes throughout about fighting "magnificent, dangerous fires in remote and rugged terrain," what Leschak focuses on here are the questions of why he chose such a supremely high-risk job and whether he measures up to the quick-thinking, life-saving acts of Reverend Peter Pernin during the hellfire that struck Peshtigo, Wisconsin, in 1871, killing an estimated 1,200 people and burning 1,800 square miles. Leschak, too, had trained for the ministry, but he bridled at the authoritarianism and yearned for more direct personal responsibility in his life. There's plenty of zeal-touched imagery here, from "the romantic attraction of hardship and hazard amid a corpulent society obsessed with mammon" through phrases like "grasp the hot iron," referring to a trial by fire believed by Saxons to distinguish the innocent from the guilty. It might be a stretch to say that the plain-speaking Leschak has a death wish ("I sure wouldn't want to miss it. Miss what? Let's slice to the core: miss the chance to die"), though on the daring meter he rates very high. "Action," he says, "is the crux of sentient life," and the crazy-sublime world of wildfires is just the place to find it, though he admits that "anyone who does it for the money is either desperately derelict or requires remedial arithmetic." Like Pernin, who led dozens to safety during the Peshtigo conflagration, Leschak "accepted the duty of decision" by becoming a crew chief. The urgency and drama that infuse his story never feel overstated but aptly fit the circumstances.History, danger, and courage, intriguingly rendered.
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Federalist Papers
Author: Alexander Hamilton
The Federalist Papers--85 essays published in the winter of 1787-8 in the New York press--are some of the most crucial and defining documents in American political history, laying out the principles that still guide our democracy today. The three authors--Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay--were respectively the first Secretary of the Treasury, the fourth President, and the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in American history. Each had played a crucial role in the events of the American Revolution, and their essays make a compelling case for a new and united nation, governed under a written Constitution that endures to this day. The Federalist Papers are an indispensable guide to the intentions of the founding fathers and a canonical text in the development of western political thought. This is the first edition to explain the many classical, mythological, and historical references in the text, and to pay full attention to the erudition of the three authors, which enabled them to place the infant American republic in a long tradition of self-governing states.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Synopsis of The Federalist Papers
Select Bibliography
A Chronology of Events 1763-1791
Map of the United States c. 1789
The Federalist Papers 1
Appendix The Constitution of the United States (1787 and 1791) 433
Explanatory Notes 447
Thematic Index 467
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