Green Fire: Stories from the Wild (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781453682180)

The author, Earle F. Layser, grew up on a farm in a rural and mountainous setting near the small and picturesque village of Cedar Run in north-central Pennsylvania. The author fished, hunted, and ran traplines. From an early age his destiny was determined by the outdoors and wildlands. After completing an enlistment in the military, at age twenty-one the author matriculated in forestry at the University of Montana and was a smokejumper. He earned a Master of Science degree in botany and plant ecology at New York State College of Environmental Sciences at Syracuse, and later completed additional graduate studies in biosystematics and ecology at Washington State University and Colorado State University, working his way through school as a teaching and research assistant, herbarium curator, sawmill laborer, and in seasonal forestry positions. He was certification as a wildlife biologist by The Wildlife Society, a professional ecologist by The Ecological Society of America, and as a forester by the Society of American Foresters. In 1977, he was the recipient of the prestigious national American Motors Conservation Award. The author's career took him throughout the western United States and Alaska in various resource management and administrative positions with the U.S. Forest Service and Department of Interior, and later, as a private consultant. In 1976, his career brought him to the Greater Yellowstone in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, which he had first visited as child with his parents in 1947, camping out of the back of a wood-paneled station wagon. The author discovered a strong connection to the area, especially its abundant wildlife and backcountry. In 1990, he retired from government service and returned to the Tetons as a natural resources consultant, photographer, and writer. He has published scientific research papers and monographs on land-use planning, botany, plant ecology, and wildlife, and also a large number and variety of popular articles in magazines on natural history, travel and history. He is the author of other two other books: Flora of Pend Oreille County, Washington, and the award winning biography, I Always Did Like Horses and Women: Enoch Cal Carrington's Life Story. He and his wife, Pattie, currently live with their dog, Benji, on the west slope of the Tetons in Alta, Wyoming. Benji provided comfort and support by sleeping on the author's foot throughout the writing of this book.