Barker blogs about the history of the general area burned in the giant Murphy Fire complex and the personalities involved.
He has written a lot about fires, beginning with his coverage of 1988 Yellowstone Park fires and living through the firestorm that blew through Old Faithful that year.
In 2005 his book Scorched Earth: How the Fires of Yellowstone Changed America (Island Press) came out. I used it as a text in Public Lands Politics class.
I wrote to him yesterday asking him to point out that no amount of grazing would contain cheatgrass, and a lot of other folks no doubt contacted him too, probably leading in part to today’s blog. Fire brings out the same old question: Is it man or is it nature? By Rocky Barker. Idaho Statesman.
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Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan's Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of "Hiking Idaho." He also wrote "Beyond the Tetons" and "Backpacking Wyoming's Teton and Washakie Wilderness." He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
