Fire in the Forest

Peter A. Thomas is senior lecturer in environmental science at Keele University, UK and has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Alberta, Canada and a Bullard Fellow at Harvard University, USA. He has a PhD in forest fire ecology from the University of New Brunswick, Canada and has been involved in a number of fire research projects since in Canada and the USA. His teaching encompasses a wide range of tree and woodland related topics including fire behaviour and fire ecology, and he recently received an Excellence in Teaching Award from Keele University. He has travelled extensively around the world investigating burnt forests; the information and perspective gained informs his teaching, writing and research. His research interests focus on tree ecology and forest fires. He is the author of Trees: Their Natural History and Ecology of Woodlands and Forests both published by Cambridge University Press. Robert S. (Rob) McAlpine works with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, Aviation and Forest Fire Management Branch, where he leads the Science and Technology group. He is actively involved in the fire management programme and continues to develop tools and concepts to improve the practice of fire management. Rob also worked with the Canadian Forest Service for more than 10 years where he was a research scientist studying fire behaviour. Rob's current research interests and activities span fire behaviour, fire economics, equipment development, and organizational effectiveness. He has worked in fire management and research for almost 30 years from a front line fire fighter to a fire scientist.

• 1. In the beginning … ; 2. Historical review; 3. How a fire burns; 4. Fire in the wild landscape; 5. Fire ecology; 6. The benefits of fire and its use as a landscape tool; 7. Fire suppression; 8. Wildland fire and its management – a look towards the future; 9. Further reading; Index.

' … large and sumptuously produced … the authors and the publisher deserve congratulation for the high standard of the illustrations, which make a complex subject far easier to understand … The book is published at a very reasonable price. I learnt a lot from it, and suspect that many who have important responsibilities for forests would do so too.' Bulletin of the British Ecological Society