Fire Weather
The Making of a Beast
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Narrated by:
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Alan Carlson
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Written by:
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John Vaillant
About this listen
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Winner of the 2024 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing • Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction • Winner of the 2024 J.W. Dafoe Book Prize • Winner of the 2024 Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize • Finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction • Finalist for the National Book Award in Nonfiction • One of the New York Times’ Top Ten Books of The Year • Finalist for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Non-Fiction • Finalist for the 2024 Lane Anderson Award
A stunning account of the colossal wildfire at Fort McMurray, 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.
Named a Best Book of the Year by The Guardian • TIME • The Globe and Mail • The New Yorker • Financial Times • CBC • Smithsonian • Air Mail Weekly • Slate • NPR • Toronto Star • The Washington Post • The Times • Orion Magazine
In May 2016, Fort McMurray, the hub of Canada's petroleum 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, Vaillant takes 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.
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What the critics say
“All-too-timely. . . . The real protagonist here is the fire itself: an unruly and terrifying force with insatiable appetites. This book is both a real-life thriller and a moment-by-moment account of what happened—and why, as the climate changes and humans don’t, it will continue to happen again and again.” —The New York Times, ”10 Best Books of 2023”
“A gripping depiction of the blaze’s devastating trajectory. . . . The book’s true protagonist is fire, which Vaillant treats like a living, breathing creature that is destined to grow even more dangerous as the world becomes even more combustible. At a time when wildfires are dominating news cycles, Fire Weather is not just a timely and stunning account of recent history—it’s also a frightening preview of what could become our new normal. —Shannon Carlin, TIME Magazine's ”100 Must-Read Books of 2023”
“This timely and riveting account of the 2016 McMurray wildfire explores not just that Canadian inferno but what it bodes for the future. Vaillant has a chillingly serious message: This is the inevitable result of climate change, and it will happen again and again.” —The New York Times, ”100 Notable Books of 2023”
“A gripping narrative and a loud wake-up call. . . . Impossible to stop [reading].” —The Washington Post
What listeners say about Fire Weather
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Anonymous User
- 2024-03-03
Great read, very informative
What a wonderful book. Having survived the fire season of 2023 in my area of the globe (North of Fort McMurray) I was looking for information about forest fires, and the interplay of climate change, and honestly and answer to my question: what the hell is going on?
I had heard the author on the radio last year discussing the fires that were happening in our area and I'd made a mental note to read his book.
It did not disappoint. I highly recommend it for anyone living in a WUI, for anyone who is curious, for anyone else who thinks "what the hell is going on" when they look around and everything's on fire. I understand now a bit better the situation and I feel better prepared to deal with another "record-breaking fire season" as will likely happen again soon enough.
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- Stan C.
- 2024-04-13
chilling story of a dreadful disaster
I feel guilty living across Canada and not being more aware of what happened in Fort Mac that year. This book is an eye opener not only on this accident but on so many other levels. it's very technical so one might get lost at moments with so much data. There's a lot of specific vocabulary, too. I really hope it reaches a wider audience. My only complaint is the use of imperial units of measurement without the metric. For example, it's hard for me to imagine how hot is anything in Fahrenheit as I don't use it. 100% recommended.
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- Sarah M
- 2023-05-31
Gripping and Scary!
Wow! Once I started listening I could not stop.
In usual John Vaillant fashion, the writing is beautiful and vivid. In addition to being well researched and and informative it’s also as fast paced and gripping as a bestselling thriller.
The story focuses on the Fort McMurray fire, told through interviews with firefighters and survivors. Their sorties are moving and scary.
In addition its also about the changing science of forest fires and a warning about the devastating consequences of inaction on climate change.
Scary! At first the stories of the people who survived the Fort Mac fires were frightening and scary. But by the end I felt fear for my children and the generations to come. He paints a stark picture of a warming world and the positive feedback loops created by forest fires as they release vast amounts of carbon, while burning the exact thing the we rely on to remove carbon dioxide: trees. As good a call to action on climate change as anything I have ever read (or listened to). Highly recommended.
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- Pauline Witzke
- 2024-05-22
Highly recommend!
John Valiant extensively researched not only the physics and chemistry of fire, but also the social context of major fire events and historical tipping point that have gotten our civilization to the breaking point in which we now find ourselves.
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- Jon Payne
- 2023-06-19
Excellent
Great listen! Highly recommended. listened to it a few times already. Narration was very good too.
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- Gloria Gustafson
- 2023-10-24
Wake Up big corporations
Great book and was filled with incredible facts . We , us humans have tipped the scales too far!
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- Amazon Customer
- 2023-10-24
Great Book
little by little it gets you and the world of fire is coming we like it or not... if you like the relation between fire and humans and how we never seem to learn, this is book for you .
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- Anonymous User
- 2024-07-29
A gripping tale we should all read
Fabulous read! We are living this now. The book explains wildfires, why and how they happens. You can’t put the book down. Everyone should read this to understand what is happening and what the future holds.
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- Anonymous User
- 2024-12-16
This is incredible
Holly hell! As a supplier of technology & training to mitigate these wildfires, I am thankful that the authour has helped me understand the perspective of many stakeholders that have actually faced these horrific situations. As I live in downtown Toronto, I need to understand what we are up against. A huge global threat.
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- Cody K.
- 2023-06-04
insightful and gripping
if you like John Vaillant you will love this book. He has a great ability to add context, nuance and humanity to complex topics.
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