"Fire Season: Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout" by Philip Connors

I randomly came upon a review of this book (on Salon, maybe?) and bought it because the reviewer compared the author to Ed Abbey, whom I love. Indeed, the book did not disappoint, and I would highly recommend it to Abbey fans, National Forest fans and those interested in wilderness policy. The author waxes lyrical a bit more than Abbey, but doesn't go overboard, and the book is not so much gripping as engrossing -- it creates its atmosphere nicely and if that's what you're looking for at the moment, you'll go back to it.

I started reading this a week after the Needles Lookout burned to the ground, which, in turn was a week after we visited it, though I had bought the book much earlier.