New Memoir Exposes the Forgotten Side of Wildland Firefighting - Bill Beebe's Before We Were Heroes: Southern Fires Tells the Story America Hasn't Heard
Bill Beebe’s memoir Before We Were Heroes: Southern Fires recounts the untold struggles of wildland firefighters in 1970s Arkansas, reflecting on service, hardship, and life before public recognition.
Wasilla, AK — May 7, 2026 | Long before roadside signs welcomed wildland firefighters into communities, before strangers picked up the check at diners, Bill Beebe was eating on back porches and being told to leave. His new memoir, Before We Were Heroes: Southern Fires, puts that history on the page.
Beebe spent more than 30 years fighting wildland fires across the country. He worked in the swamps and piney woods of Arkansas, the remote wilderness of Alaska, and on some of the most complex incidents in the nation. He served on National Type 1 Incident Management Teams and a national Area Command Team. Few people have seen as much of this work as he has. Fewer still have chosen to write about the parts that made them uncomfortable.
The book is set in 1970s Arkansas, when Beebe and his crew were fighting fire on two fronts. One was the blaze in the forest. The other was the communities around them. They were threatened. Cursed. Turned away from restaurants while the smoke from fires they were battling still hung in the air. "There was a time when eating on the porch of a country store got us run off," Beebe writes. "This is about that time."
What sets this book apart is what it doesn't do. It doesn't moralize. It doesn't demand credit. It's a firsthand account of men who showed up, did the job, and went home without a hero's welcome. Beebe grew up on a small farm in the river bottomlands of eastern Arkansas, 12 miles from the nearest town, with a relationship to the land that shaped everything that came after. That upbringing is woven through every page.
Before We Were Heroes: Southern Fires is a book for readers who appreciate history that hasn't been cleaned up. It's for firefighters who lived it. It's for anyone who wants to understand what the job looked like before it became celebrated.
Bill Beebe is available for interviews, speaking engagements, and media appearances.
(For more information or to request a review copy, contact: billbeebe7@gmail.com)