The Earth Liberation Front (Elf), a loosely organized group of eco-anarchist activists from the US Pacific northwest, has been the subject of renewed attention with the release of Matthew Wolfe’s book Fires in the Night. The book examines the group’s history and legacy in the context of ongoing environmental activism.

Active between 1995 and 2001, Elf members, who called themselves "the Family" and were known externally as Elves, engaged in economic sabotage and arson targeting fur breeders, timber warehouses, meatpacking plants, SUV dealerships, and electric power transmission towers. Their most notorious attack occurred in 1998 at a ski resort in Vail, Colorado, causing over $12 million in damage. The group stated this attack was carried out on behalf of endangered lynx.

Following a May 2001 arson at an Oregon tree farm, Elf left a message on a remaining structure that read, “YOU CANNOT CONTROL WHAT IS WILD!”, alongside the group’s acronym.

Despite their actions against property, Elf members practiced non-violence toward life and operated under a "leaderless resistance" model. They were labeled domestic terrorists by authorities.

In a statement before receiving a 13-year prison sentence for multiple arsons including the Vail fire, Elf member Stanislas Meyerhoff, co-author of an incendiary bomb-making guide, expressed regret, saying he “was ignorant of history and economy and acted from a faulty and narrow vision as an ordinary bigot.”

Another member, Joseph Dibee, apprehended in Cuba in 2018 under an Interpol red notice, later claimed that Elf had not truly existed. This assertion parallels debates surrounding groups like "antifa," which have been designated terrorist organizations by the Trump administration.

The Earth Liberation Front’s influence persists in contemporary environmental movements such as the Sunrise Movement, Extinction Rebellion, and Just Stop Oil, which share similar goals opposing fossil fuels, ecological harm, and authoritarianism.

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