Fire Weather

A True Story from a Hotter World

By: John Vaillant

Narrated by: Alan Carlson

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

“Riveting, spellbinding, astounding on every page…Captures the majesty and horror of one of [our] great disasters.” —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.

For hundreds of millennia, fire has been a partner in our evolution, shaping culture, civilization, and, very likely, our brains. Fire has enabled us to cook our food, defend and heat our homes, and power the machines that drive our titanic economy. Yet this volatile energy source has always threatened to elude our control, and in our new age of intensifying climate change, we are seeing its destructive power unleashed in previously unimaginable ways.

With masterly prose and a cinematic eye, Vaillanttakes us on a riveting journey through the intertwined histories of North America’s oil industry and the birth of climate science, to the unprecedented devastation wrought by modern forest fires, and into lives forever changed by these disasters. John Vaillant’s urgent work is a book for—and from—our new century of fire, which has only just begun.


* This audiobook edition includes a downloadable PDF of maps, images, and charts from the book.

Masterfully written, and about much more than this one wildfire

The book is worth it alone for prose about fire behavior. Tells not only the tale of this one devastating wildfire in Alberta, but also the rise (and gradual decline) of the tar sands oil industry, and broader implications of climate change. Well read as well.

A truly great book, brilliantly narrated

An exciting, heart-pounding story that also makes you think and leaves you with a message of hope. Best audiobook I’ve listened to in many years.

fire history

history, types/kinds of fires, climate change connection . The human psycho-social stories for 2016 fire!

Essential reading.

FIRE WEATHER is to non-fiction, and specifically literature on climate change, what Cormac McCarthy’s THE ROAD is to fiction.

A gripping fire story buried in a political tome.

The fire story and personal losses were gripping and emotionally moving.

The author is a very skilled writer and his words are easy to consume.

Unfortunately, the fire story is severely diminished by the repetitive, one sided, inaccurate hits against humans for causing global warming.

The science of global warming is unsettled.

The sound of the audio commonly carries a sound of disdain against the religious and anyone who challenges the global warming concepts pushed with the fire story. Left me feeling attacked.