Author of Â??fire on the Mountain’ Discusses Wildfire Issues April 22 at Colorado State University

As wildfire season approaches in Colorado, author John Maclean will present "The Thirtymile Fire: Burning Issues in the Fire World" at 7 p.m. April 22 in Room 113 Natural Resources Building on Colorado State University’s campus. The presentation is free and open to the public.

Maclean, a former reporter, turned to publishing books after the 1994 South Canyon Fire on Colorado’s Storm King Mountain that killed 14 firefighters. Maclean spent the next several years researching and writing his first book, "Fire on the Mountain," published in 1999, and was awarded the Mountains and Plains Booksellers Association’s best nonfiction title.

Maclean is also the son of Norman Maclean, author of "A River Runs Through It" and "Young Men and Fire".

Maclean went to work for the City News Bureau of Chicago as a police reporter and rewrite man in 1964 and was hired by The Chicago Tribune the following year. In 1970, he was sent to the Washington Bureau of the Tribune, becoming the youngest journalist at that time ever to work in the bureau. He remained there for 18 years, most of that time as the diplomatic correspondent covering the State Department.

He was a regular on the "Kissinger Shuttle," covering many of the legendary diplomatic journeys of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Maclean was a Nieman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard University in 1974-75 and became the Tribune’s foreign editor in Chicago in 1988.

Colorado State University’s Student Firefighter Association is hosting the presentation. The association includes active, past and aspiring wildland firefighters and students, professors and researchers.

Maclean’s presentation also is sponsored by Associated Students of Colorado State University and the Supply Cache.

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