When: Tuesday, 11 November 2025, 7:00 PM

Where: Bar Knulp, Trieste

Seminar: Youth and Fire

In the early afternoon of August 5, 1949, fifteen wildfire fighters from the United States Forest Service were parachuted into Mann Gulch, Montana. Their task was to confront and then contain a blaze ignited by a lightning strike on a ridge the day before. On the ground they found another firefighter already at work. Less than two hours after the jump, extraordinary weather and environmental conditions produced a rare phenomenon. The account of the rapid succession of events and emotions draws the listener into the epic story of the young protagonists, amid the flames in the Mann Gulch canyon.

Speaker: Valter Sergo is Full Professor of Chemistry in the Department of Engineering and Architecture at the University of Trieste. He learned about the Mann Gulch events during a sabbatical at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1993. Thirty years later he translated into Italian Norman Maclean’s book that gives this presentation its title.

Music by: The Polite Smooth Jazz Quartet

Readings from: Virgil’s Aeneid.

Caffè dei Quanti is an initiative of the Department of Physics at the University of Trieste