Across the inland West, forests that once seemed like paradise have turned into an ecological nightmare. Fires,
insect epidemics, and disease now threaten millions of acres of once-bountiful forests. Yet no one can agree what
went wrong. Was it too much management - or not enough - that forced the forests of the inland West to the verge
of collapse? Is the solution more logging, or no logging at all? In this gripping work of scientific and historical
detection, Nancy Langston unravels the disturbing history of what went wrong with the western forests, despite
the best intentions of those involved. Focusing on the Blue Mountains of northeastern Oregon and southeastern Washington,
she explores how the complex landscapes that so impressed settlers in the nineteenth century became an ecological
disaster in the late twentieth. Federal foresters, intent on using their scientific training to stop exploitation
and waste, suppressed light fires in the ponderosa pinelands. Hoping to save the forests, they could not foresee
that their policies would instead destroy what they loved. When light fires were kept out, a series of ecological
changes began. Firs grew thickly in forests once dominated by ponderosa pines, and when droughts hit, those firs
succumbed to insects, diseases, and eventually catastrophic fires.