April 12, 2013 — Federal firefighters, and their state and local counterparts, face an increasingly difficult challenge protecting life and property in the ever-growing wildland-urban-interface, the area where forestland intermixes with development.

Sometimes firefighters pay the ultimate price, as was the case for the entire five member Forest Service crew of Engine 57 on the 2006 Esperanza Fire in southern California.

This week on “FEDtalk”, author John Maclean joins hosts Debra Roth and Tony Vergnetti to discuss his newest book on wildland fire tragedies: The Esperanza Fire: Arson, Murder, and the Agony of Engine 57.

Maclean, a 30 year veteran of the Chicago Tribune, has written extensively on wildfire tragedies since his retirement from the Tribune, authoring three additional books on the subject.

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