Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World

PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • A NEW YORK TIMES TOP TEN BOOK OF THE YEAR • FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN NONFICTION • FINALIST FOR THE PEN/GALBRAITH AWARD FOR NONFICTION • A stunning account of a colossal wildfire and a panoramic exploration of the rapidly changing relationship between fire and humankind from the award-winning, best-selling author of The Tiger and The Golden Spruce • Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, TIME, NPR, Slate, and Smithsonian “Grips like a philosophical thriller, warns like a beacon, and shocks to the core." —Robert Macfarlane, bestselling author of Underland “Riveting, spellbinding, astounding on every page.” —David Wallace-Wells, #1 bestselling author of The Uninhabitable Earth In May 2016, Fort McMurray, the hub of Canada’s oil industry and America’s biggest foreign supplier, was overrun by wildfire. The multi-billion-dollar disaster melted vehicles, turned entire neighborhoods into firebombs, and drove 88,000 people from their homes in a single afternoon. Through the lens of this apocalyptic conflagration—the wildfire equivalent of Hurricane Katrina—John Vaillant warns that this was not a unique event, but a shocking preview of what we must prepare for in a hotter, more flammable world.