John Norman MacLean (b. 1943) is an American author and journalist, known for his writing about wildland firefighting. MacLean holds a bachelor's degree from
Shimer College, a
Great Books college in Chicago, and was a Nieman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard University. He worked for the City News Bureau and the Chicago Tribune for many years before leaving the Tribune to work on his first book,
Fire on the Mountain, in 1995. He has published numerous books since then, including
Young Men and Fire,
Fire and Ashes, and
The Thirtymile Fire. (from
Shimer College Wiki)