Fire Weather

No book feels timelier . . . impossible to put down
Cal Flyn, The Times

Superb and terrifying
Katherine Rundell, Guardian

It reads like a thriller . . . utterly compelling
Andrea Wulf, author of The Invention of Nature

Astounding on every page
David Wallace-Wells, author of The Uninhabitable Earth

A towering achievement . . . extraordinary
Robert Macfarlane, author of Underland

In May 2016, a Canadian oil town was overrun by wildfire, turning entire neighbourhoods into firebombs and driving 90,000 people from their homes.

Through the gripping story of this apocalyptic conflagration, John Vaillant explores our relationship with fire, an energy source that has been our partner in evolution for hundreds of millennia, shaping our culture and civilization. Now, in our age of intensifying climate change, its destructive power has been unleashed in ways previously unimaginable.

Fire Weather is an astounding account of this centurys most intense urban fire, and an urgent examination of humanitys future in an ever-hotter, more flammable world.