Wildfire Expert Stephen Pyne on CNN’s “Violent Earth”

Date: Sunday, June 9, 2024

Time: 7 p.m. MST and AZT, 8 p.m. CST, 9 p.m. EST and PST

Where: CNN

Stephen J. Pyne, author of Five Suns: A Fire History of Mexico, will speak about wildfire on CNN’s television news documentary Violent Earth. Pyne was the fire expert interviewed for the episode titled “Wildfire.” In each episode of Violent Earth, scientists and meteorologists explain the science behind deadly natural occurrences, how they form, where they happen, and what to do if you find yourself trapped in one of these situations.

Pyne is a fire historian, urban farmer, and emeritus professor at Arizona State University. He spent fifteen seasons with the North Rim Longshots, a fire crew at Grand Canyon National Park. Out of those seasons emerged a scholarly interest in the history and management of fire and he has written over thirty books. His two most recent books are Five Suns: A Fire History of Mexico (2024) and Pyrocene Park (2023).

About Five Suns: A Fire History of Mexico:

A climate defined by wet and dry seasons, a mostly mountainous terrain, a biota prone to disturbances, a human geography characterized by a diversity of peoples all of whom rely on burning in one form or another: Mexico has ideal circumstances for fire, and those fires provide a unique perspective on its complex history. Narrating Mexico’s evolution of fire through five eras, Pyne describes the pre-human, pre-Hispanic, colonial, industrializing (1880–1980), and contemporary (1980–2015) fire biography of this diverse and dynamic country.

About Pyrocene Park:

Its monumental rocks, etched by glaciers during the last Ice Age, have made Yosemite National Park a crown jewel of the national park system and a world-celebrated destination. Yet, more and more, fire rather than ice is shaping this storied landscape. Renowned fire historian Pyne argues that the relationship between fire and humans has become a defining feature of our epoch, and he reveals how Yosemite offers a cameo of how we have replaced an ice age with a fire age: the Pyrocene.