Maclean 's first book was '' Fire on the Mountain '' , about the deadly South Canyon Fire on Storm King Mountain ( in Garfield County , Colorado ) , in 1994 . The book won the Mountains and Plains Booksellers award for the best non-fiction of 1994 . Maclean 's second book , '' Fire and Ashes : On the Frontlines of American Wildfire '' , was published in 2003 and chronicles the 1953 Rattlesnake Fire on the Mendocino National Forest in northern California , the 1999 Sadler Fire in Nevada , and the 1949 Mann Gulch Fire in Montana , which was the subject of his father , Norman Maclean 's '' Young Men and Fire , '' a book published posthumously with John ’s assistance . Maclean 's third book , '' The Thirtymile Fire : A Chronicle of Bravery and Betrayal '' , recounts the deadly Thirtymile Fire ( and the controversy and recriminations that raged in its aftermath ) . The Thirtymile entrapped and killed four members of a fire crew
Rattlesnake Fire
Rattlesnake Fire
John N. Maclean