Concordia Professor Continues Wildfire Story

Jul 08, 2013

fire
Scott Olsen spent summer 2012 studying fires. Big fires. Fires that call for smokejumpers, air tankers and hotshot crews. And while Olsen, a Concordia English professor and author, is fascinated by the fire and the path it takes, he’s more fascinated with the people whose lives revolve around those fires and the stories that run with them.

This summer he’d moved on to hurricanes. He’d written the collection of stories about the people who fought those western wildfires. Finished it, so he thought. He’d been waiting for a call from the Hurricane Hunters to get his chance to fly with them during the duration of a storm. And then the tragedy near Yarnell, Ariz., happened. Nineteen firefighters were killed by a fire that changed directions with the wind. Olsen changed directions then, too. This was too big to say his original work was complete. He got in his Jeep and headed to Arizona.

Read The Forum’s article on Olsen in Arizona.

Read Olsen’s piece in The Huffington Post on one firefighter’s narrow escape.



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