In October 1996, eco-activists Jacob Ferguson and Josephine Overaker attacked forestry service ranger stations in Oregon. They used homemade incendiaries, and also left a spray-painted slogan – ‘Earth Liberation Front’. This underground group soon became known as ELF, with its members referred to as Elves. 

More arsons would follow against properties involved in environmental damage or animal abuse. But eight years after his role in the first fires, Ferguson turned informant and sent several ELF members to prison. In between these acts of allegiance and treachery, US journalist Matthew Wolfe charts the ELF from its fiery boom to its fractious bust. 

Wolfe’s previous reportage includes articles on domestic abuse, the USA’s first Black private investigator, a graffiti artist, a persecuted Muslim, and invasive species in Florida. A sympathy for the marginalised, and contempt for petty authority, runs through his work. Wolfe is skilled at creating strong plot-driven narratives, a talent he brings to bear in this often nail-biting page-turner. It’s a nonfiction book, though some creative leeway must be allowed for, given that Wolfe undertook hundreds of conflicting interviews. 

The case for direct action

Fires in the Night takes us graphically into a realm of eclectic vegan countercultures. In particular, the city of Eugene, Oregon is given status as a hotbed of sedition. Notably it was home to the Earth First! journal, a radical newsletter which employed Kevin Tubbs, a prominent Elf. Jacob Ferguson, we learn, was a volunteer at Food Not Bombs, an anti-capitalist soup kitchen in Eugene, when he first met Tubbs. The pair became committed to direct action in defence of old-growth trees, taking part in a victorious occupation at Warner Creek in Oregon’s Willamette forest. 

Wolfe digs into the ELF’s formation, asking what drove its members to take such drastic action as burning down a mountainous ski resort, or torching car dealerships. He describes their fears about increased public apathy, rampant consumerism and entrenched capitalist forces. Facts are set out, such as 90 per cent of Willamette’s old-growth forests having been chopped down by the late 1990s, turned into sundecks and pleasure boats. 

Crucially, the author suggests that these anarchists didn’t want chaos. Instead, they desired a society based on mutual aid, cooperation, and collective responsibility. Their main argument being that letter writing, petitioning and marching peacefully only prolongs one’s subjugation. Why try to vote away a logging truck, asks Wolfe, when you can slash its tires and slice its fuel line?

Education and ethical dilemmas

Throughout the book, there’s good education and history offered on environmental movements, both mainstream and radical. Given the distinct strategies employed by either side, this feels important. Their differences marked a line in the sand, which one group dared to cross in becoming a militant wing. But even if Wolfe is broadly aligned with ELF’s objectives, he doesn’t shy from critical views, or ethical dilemmas. The cell’s arson at Cavel West horse slaughterhouse took two million gallons of water to extinguish, whereas burning down ranger stations to save trees also polluted the air. 

To help spin his engaging story, the author vividly portrays each prominent Elf. Jacob Ferguson is described as ‘a kind of postapocalyptic pirate, a rope-muscled man dressed in raggedy black clothing’. Josephine Overaker could be found snacking on raw brown rice, adopting a witchy Earth Mother persona. Kevin Tubbs namechecked the San Francisco punks Dead Kennedys as his favourite band, something which endeared him to this reader.

This drawing of the Elves as distinct characters is key to the success of Wolfe’s chronicle. Their strengths and foibles are laid bare, lending an almost soap-operatic dimension to the gang’s romances, friendships and bust-ups. 

One central relationship formed between charismatic daredevil William ‘Avalon’ Rodgers and scrawny outsider Stanislas Meyerhoff. Together they built the ELF’s intricate explosives, but Wolfe teases out how these acts also filled both men’s emotional voids. Various childhoods are examined, including that of Rebecca Rubin, a shy girl who grew up reading novels like Charlotte’s Web about abused animals. In adult life she was tagged as armed and dangerous, atop of the FBI’s ‘most wanted’ list. 

Lives on the line

Fires in the Night is not just a portrait of rebellion across the Pacific Northwest. It has much else to teach us about modern US affairs. In particular, it delves into the upshot of 9/11, analysing the fallout after the FBI was blindsided by Al-Qaeda. Wolfe reports that the ELF, newly classed as terrorists, soon sensed the public mood harden. Any appreciation for setting buildings on fire had vanished. 

The Elves were a tight-knit sect, yet these close ties also triggered their downfall. An internal burst of jealousy against Jacob Ferguson turned the FBI’s spotlight onto this now drug-addled man. Using bluff and bribery, they coerced him into a turncoat’s role, trapping each Elf into taped confessions. Only one member, Josephine Overaker, has eluded capture to this day. The others faced prison sentences, commensurate with how much they helped investigators.

It’s how Wolfe handles the fallout from these ‘betrayals’ that’s fascinating. With empathy, he describes most Elves as having built respectable new lives since their activist days. What would they gain from becoming forgotten martyrs? We might ask, in such a situation, how would we ourselves respond? The movie How to Blow Up a Pipeline and Richard Powers’ novel The Overstory both depict the grim fate of eco-arsonists on being caught. 

If there’s a key takeaway from this book, it’s the contrast in societal perspectives on justice and violence. From one side you have state-sanctioned attacks against eco-protesters, animals and the environment. Compare that with the ELF’s perceived violence which was only inflicted on property. Despite never costing a life, their ‘crimes’ were sentenced far more harshly than worse offences by anti-abortionists or white supremacists. 

Those of us familiar with direct action know the old adage about it being 90 per cent sheer boredom, ten per cent sheer terror. Wolfe really makes us feel that terror, where lives and liberty were on the line in defence of the planet. He closes out with something else frightening – a global list of recent eco-catastrophes and fires. Whatever havoc the ELF once wreaked, our Earth is now inflicting its own volatile vengeance upon us. But who will be imprisoned for causing this?