UP Notable Book Club: The Great Seney Fire

UP Notable Book Club presents a Q&A session with Greg Lusk about “The Great Seney Fire: A History of the Walsh Ditch Fire of 1976.“

Author and retired fire safety professional Greg Lusk was the Assistant Fire Boss for the many months of the 1976 Seney Fire.  According to The Mining Journal: “All told, the fire spread over 72,500 acres during a period of record drought, requiring an interagency firefighting force of more than 1,200 firefighters from twenty-nine states to achieve containment. It burned until the winter snow extinguished it.”

GREGORY M. LUSK, a native Yooper, spent the long, dry summer of 1976 helping to suppress the largest, most costly forest fire that had burned in Michigan since 1908. In early August, he left his job in Marquette as a fire management specialist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources to work as the assistant Fire Boss for the State. His experiences several years earlier in Vietnam as a platoon leader were as valuable as his degree in forestry from Michigan Tech and his extensive training in forest fire behavior. The leaves had fallen and the early winter snow was starting to arrive by the time he returned home to Marquette.

Long after he retired as the Upper Peninsula State fire supervisor in 1997, he dug out his news clippings, maps, and notes and began writing the history of the Great Seney fire. He was partly motivated by the aphorism that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” with hopes that this account will help others remember this essential piece of Michigan history.

UP Notable Book Club: The Crystal Falls Community District Library in partnership with the U.P. Publishers & Authors Association (UPPAA) has scheduled author events with winners of the UP Notable Book List.

Where: On the Zoom platform — please contact Evelyn Gathu in advance by egathu@crystalfallslibrary.org, or by phone at (906) 875-3344. We recommend you borrow a copy of these books from your local library or purchase from your local bookseller in advance to get the most out of these events.