Matthew Wolfe

Let's do this! Pacific Northwest mini-tour for my new true crime/radical politics book "Fires In The Night: The Earth Liberation Front, The FBI, and A Secret History of Eco-Sabotage"! We're hitting @powells.bsky.social in Portland, Seattle, Olympia, Eugene, Corvallis!

Dudes in ski masks cuddling fuzzy animals: a thread (Found these mostly in old animal rights zines while researching my book -- buy it! link in bio!)

Dudes in ski masks cuddling fuzzy animals: a thread (Found these mostly in old animal rights zines while researching my book -- buy it! link in bio!)

Dudes in ski masks cuddling fuzzy animals: a thread (Found these mostly in old animal rights zines while researching my book -- buy it! link in bio!)

Dudes in ski masks cuddling fuzzy animals: a thread (Found these mostly in old animal rights zines while researching my book -- buy it! link in bio!)

Trump is removing limits on “forever chemicals,” opening our national parks for logging and drilling, and stripping the EPA for parts. If that makes you want to burn something down (figuratively), this is the book for you. Huge thanks to @nytimesbooks for recommending FITN!

It’s been largely forgotten but, in the 1970s, basically EVERYONE was an environmentalist, Democrat and Republican. Starting in the 1960s, Americans became aware we were facing a dire ecological crisis. Smog in L.A. was so bad, visibility sometimes dropped down to almost zero.

The Heritage Foundation, a prominent right-wing think tank, spent millions pushing back on science and arguing that pollution was a consumer choice, such that, by the 1980s, the GOP, including Reagan, had flipped and was now staunchly anti-environmentalism.

It’s been largely forgotten but, in the 1970s, basically EVERYONE was an environmentalist, Democrat and Republican. Starting in the 1960s, Americans became aware we were facing a dire ecological crisis. Smog in L.A. was so bad, visibility sometimes dropped down to almost zero.

An estimated 20 million people participated in the first Earth Day, in 1970, with Congress calling a full recess. Richard Nixon created the EPA. Ronald Reagan, as governor of California, bragged loudly about being pro-regulation. The Clean Air Act passed the Senate UNANIMOUSLY.

Photo I found in court documents while researching my book on the Earth Liberation Front: A downed 1,000,000-volt electrical tower just southeast of Bend, Oregon, which the ELF successfully pulled down on the night December 30, 2000, by unscrewing its guy wires.

This didn’t actually work. The sabotage itself was impressive — tho several Elves almost got shocked to death when the tower fell — but backup power kicked in instantly. In an interview, a former Elf told more they’d only stopped the flow of electrical current for .3 seconds.

Photo I found in court documents while researching my book on the Earth Liberation Front: A downed 1,000,000-volt electrical tower just southeast of Bend, Oregon, which the ELF successfully pulled down on the night December 30, 2000, by unscrewing its guy wires.

On October 19, 1998, the Earth Liberation Front burned down the Two Elk Lodge, a $20 million ski resort in Vail, Colorado. This required torching not just one structure but ELEVEN structures, including a ski lift. It was the most expensive act of eco-sabotage in U.S. history.

Incredibly, the ELF did this in the dead of night, carrying hundreds of pounds of fuel, by hand, up a 3,000-foot, snow-covered mountainside. The attack was so logistically complex that, afterwards, some FBI agents assumed the ELF had used a helicopter.

On March 30, 2001, members of the Earth Liberation Front set fire to 35 brand new SUVs at the Joe Romania Chevrolet dealership in Eugene, Oregon, as a protest against global warming. Photo © Paul Carter of the Eugene Register Guard, via Imagn Images.

The fire was intense enough that it melted the SUVs’ hood releases, forcing firefighters to attack the vehicles with axes to get at the engine compartments and prevent them from exploding.

In the days leading up to my book dropping, I'm posting some rare Earth Liberation Front-related photos. This is the Superior Lumber Company, in Glendale, Oregon, which the ELF torched on January 2, 2001. In a communique, they referred to Superior as "a typical earth raper."

Hey all, just sharing the beautiful cover for my forthcoming book, "Fires In The Night: The Earth Liberation Front, The FBI, and a Secret History of Eco-Sabotage," coming out June 23, 2026, from Viking! Pre-orders available!

Over a decade, the mysterious group burned down more than twenty targets across the western United States, incinerating lumber mills, slaughterhouses, SUV dealerships, and a mountaintop ski resort in Vail, Colorado.

Hey all, just sharing the beautiful cover for my forthcoming book, "Fires In The Night: The Earth Liberation Front, The FBI, and a Secret History of Eco-Sabotage," coming out June 23, 2026, from Viking! Pre-orders available!