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Fire and Brimstone
by Michael PunkeThere is a sign that appears to point persistently to a terrible explosion underground. -HOROSCOPE PRINTED IN THE ANACONDA STANDARD, JUNE 5, 1917
Fire and Brimstone: The North Butte Mining Disaster of 1917
by Michael PunkeThe author of the #1 New York Times bestseller, The Revenant--basis for the award-winning motion picture starring Leonardo DiCaprio--tells the remarkable story of the worst hard-rock mining disaster in American history. The worst hard-rock mining disaster in American history began a half hour before midnight on June 8, 1917, when fire broke out in the North Butte Mining Company's Granite Mountain shaft. Sparked more than two thousand feet below ground, the fire spewed flames, smoke, and poisonous gas through a labyrinth of underground tunnels. Within an hour, more than four hundred men would be locked in a battle to survive. Within three days, one hundred and sixty-four of them would be dead.Fire and Brimstone recounts the remarkable stories of both the men below ground and their families above, focusing on two groups of miners who made the incredible decision to entomb themselves to escape the gas. While the disaster is compelling in its own right, Fire and Brimstone also tells a far broader story striking in its contemporary relevance. Butte, Montana, on the eve of the North Butte disaster, was a volatile jumble of antiwar protest, an abusive corporate master, seething labor unrest, divisive ethnic tension, and radicalism both left and right. It was a powder keg lacking only a spark, and the mine fire would ignite strikes, murder, ethnic and political witch hunts, occupation by federal troops, and ultimately a battle over presidential power.
Fire and Flood: A People's History of Climate Change, from 1979 to the Present
by Eugene LindenFrom a writer and expert who has been at the center of the fight for more than thirty years, a brilliant, big-picture reckoning with our shocking failure to address climate change. Fire and Flood focuses on the malign power of key business interests, arguing that those same interests could flip the story very quickly—if they can get ahead of a looming economic catastrophe.Eugene Linden wrote his first story on climate change, for Time magazine, in 1988; it was just the beginning of his investigative work, exploring all ramifications of this impending disaster. Fire and Flood represents his definitive case for the prosecution as to how and why we have arrived at our current dire pass, closing with his argument that the same forces that have confused the public&’s mind and slowed the policy response are poised to pivot with astonishing speed, as long-term risks have become present-day realities and the cliff&’s edge is now within view. Starting with the 1980s, Linden tells the story, decade by decade, by looking at four clocks that move at different speeds: the reality of climate change itself; the scientific consensus about it, which always lags reality; public opinion and political will, which lag further still; and, perhaps most important, business and finance. Reality marches on at its own pace, but the public will and even the science are downstream from the money, and Fire and Flood shows how devilishly effective moneyed climate-change deniers have been at slowing and even reversing the progress of our collective awakening. When a threat means certain but future disaster, but addressing it means losing present-tense profit, capitalism&’s response has been sadly predictable. Now, however, the seasons of fire and flood have crossed the threshold into plain view. Linden focuses on the insurance industry as one loud canary in the coal mine: fire and flood zones in Florida and California, among other regions, are now seeing what many call &“climate redlining.&” The whole system is teetering on the brink, and the odds of another housing collapse, for starters, are much higher than most people understand. There is a path back from the cliff, but we must pick up the pace. Fire and Flood shows us why, and how.
Fire and Rain: California’s Changing Weather and Climate
by Stephen LaDochy Michael WitiwThis book shows how California’s weather and climate have drastically changed and what we can expect in the near future. California’s weather and climate are becoming as common a topic in the media as inflation and wars. It comes into our lives during heat waves when we require more cooling and during droughts when we are asked to limit our use of water. We may not be able to visit state and national parks when fires rage nearby. Indeed, California does have weather. LaDochy and Witiw dispel the erroneous myths about the state’s climate in a colorful, entertaining way. California does have seasons. It does rain in Southern California. It is not always sunny and mild throughout the year. And not all El Niños bring abundant rainfall every time throughout the state. These and other myths are discussed and dismissed with the latest science and remarkable vignettes. The authors describe the diversity of the state’s physical environment, both natural and man-made and how climate change is currently altering this diverse environment. Climate change, in the past, present and future, continues to influence this most populous state. Yes, California does have weather.
Fire Canoe: Prairie Steamboat Days Revisited
by Ted BarrisThe story of steamboating in the Canadian West comes to life in the voices of those aboard the vessels of the waterways of the Prairies. Their captains were seafaring skippers who had migrated inland. Their pilots were indigenous people who could read the shoals, sandbars, and currents of Prairie waterways. Their operators were businessmen hoping to reap the benefits of commercial enterprise along the shores and banks of Canada’s inland lakes and rivers. Their passengers were fur traders, adventure-seekers, and immigrants opening up the West. All of them sought their futures and fortunes aboard Prairie steamboats, decades before the railways arrived and took credit for the breakthrough. Aboriginal people called them “fire canoes,” but in the latter half of the nineteenth century, their operators promoted them as Mississippi-type steamship queens delivering speedy transport, along with the latest in technology and comfort. Then, as the twentieth century dawned, steamboats and their operators adapted. They launched smaller, more tailored steamers and focused on a new economy of business and pleasure in the West. By day their steamboats chased freight, fish, lumber, iron ore, real estate, and gold-mining contracts. At night, they brought out the Edwardian finery, lights, and music to tap the pleasure-cruise market.
Fire Ecology and Management: Past, Present, and Future of US Forested Ecosystems (Managing Forest Ecosystems #39)
by Cathryn H. Greenberg Beverly CollinsThis edited volume presents original scientific research and knowledge synthesis covering the past, present, and potential future fire ecology of major US forest types, with implications for forest management in a changing climate. The editors and authors highlight broad patterns among ecoregions and forest types, as well as detailed information for individual ecoregions, for fire frequencies and severities, fire effects on tree mortality and regeneration, and levels of fire-dependency by plant and animal communities. The foreword addresses emerging ecological and fire management challenges for forests, in relation to sustainable development goals as highlighted in recent government reports. An introductory chapter highlights patterns of variation in frequencies, severities, scales, and spatial patterns of fire across ecoregions and among forested ecosystems across the US in relation to climate, fuels, topography and soils, ignition sources (lightning or anthropogenic), and vegetation. Separate chapters by respected experts delve into the fire ecology of major forest types within US ecoregions, with a focus on the level of plant and animal fire-dependency, and the role of fire in maintaining forest composition and structure. The regional chapters also include discussion of historic natural (lightning-ignited) and anthropogenic (Native American; settlers) fire regimes, current fire regimes as influenced by recent decades of fire suppression and land use history, and fire management in relation to ecosystem integrity and restoration, wildfire threat, and climate change. The summary chapter combines the major points of each chapter, in a synthesis of US-wide fire ecology and forest management into the future.This book provides current, organized, readily accessible information for the conservation community, land managers, scientists, students and educators, and others interested in how fire behavior and effects on structure and composition differ among ecoregions and forest types, and what that means for forest management today and in the future.
Fire Escape: How Animals and Plants Survive Wildfires (Books for a Better Earth)
by Jessica StremerA timely middle grade nonfiction overview of the incredible ways animals detect, respond, and adapt to wildfires, as well as how climate change is affecting the frequency and severity of these devastating events in nature.Goats and beavers. Drones and parachutes. Pinecones and beetles. What do they have in common? Believe it or not, they are all crucial tools in fighting, preventing, and adapting to wildfires!These vicious fires are spreading faster and burning hotter than at any other time in history. Ongoing droughts, warming weather, and a history of poor forest management have extended the traditional wildfire season beyond the summer months. It is a matter of life and death for wildlife worldwide.This breathtaking nonfiction book focuses on unique angles to a hot topic, including injury rehabilitation efforts, species that use wildfires to their advantage, how to help area repopulation, and the animals that help to prevent/fight wildfires. A riveting, kid friendly text is accompanied by stunning woodcut illustrations and full-color photographs, as well as extensive back matter with glossary, sources, and index.Books for a Better Earth are designed to inspire children to become active, knowledgeable participants in caring for the planet they live on.A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection
Fire Hazards: Socio-economic and Regional Issues
by Jesús Rodrigo-Comino Luca SalvatiThe open access book aims to show the readers novel, relevant and reproducible power of synergistic collaborations between European research groups and stakeholders with the objective to synthesize the existing knowledge and expertise about fire management and hazard and defining a concerted research agenda that promotes an integrated approach to create fire-resilient landscapes, taking into account biological, biochemical and physical, but also socio-economic, historical, geographical, sociological, perception and policy constraints. This is an urgent societal need due to the expected further intensification and geographical spreading of wildfire regimes under Global Change. Fire has been part of the Earth's System for the last 400 million years, and humans are the sole species that controls and manages fire. We have used fire for over a million years, both, as hunter-gatherers managing the landscape with fire and as farmers using fire as a low-cost, efficient and ecological tool for clearing and maintaining the productivity of the land. Fire has been highlighted as the most influential element in the development of human societies. The increase in prolonged dry and hot periods observed in many regions of the world is exacerbating the risk of fire. The causes of increased fire risk are not only linked to climate change but are also a consequence of economic and social changes and political decisions. Over the past few decades, many countries’ rural areas have seen significant depopulation and a reduction in land management as residents moved to cities or even other countries in search of work. The resulting rural depopulation has led to revegetation of the abandoned agricultural land, which favors fire spread. The enhanced risk of fires is moving beyond the capacity of even the best-funded wildland firefighting teams and therefore calls for the development of new approaches to fire management that are key nowadays at different scales. Instead of focusing primarily on increasing firefighting capabilities, a more effective approach is needed that focuses on long-term fire prevention through vegetation management by reducing fuel load or managing fuel type and fuel continuity at a landscape level. FIRElinks (COST Action CA18135) is developing the EU-spanning network of scientists and practitioners involved in forest fire research and land management with backgrounds such as fire dynamics, fire risk management, fire effects on vegetation, fauna, soil and water and socio-economic, historical, geographical, political perception and land management approaches. Among the different Working Groups, number 5 is aimed to connect communities from different scientific and geographic backgrounds, allowing the discussion of different experiences and the emergence of new approaches to fire research, human management, regional issues and socio-economic aspects.
Fire in Paradise: An American Tragedy
by Alastair Gee Dani AnguianoThe harrowing story of the most destructive American wildfire in a century. There is no precedent in postwar American history for the destruction of the town of Paradise, California. On November 8, 2018, the community of 27,000 people was swallowed by the ferocious Camp Fire, which razed virtually every home and killed at least 85 people. The catastrophe seared the American imagination, taking the front page of every major national newspaper and top billing on the news networks. It displaced tens of thousands of people, yielding a refugee crisis that continues to unfold. Fire in Paradise is a dramatic and moving narrative of the disaster based on hundreds of in-depth interviews with residents, firefighters and police, and scientific experts. Alastair Gee and Dani Anguiano are California-based journalists who have reported on Paradise since the day the fire began. Together they reveal the heroics of the first responders, the miraculous escapes of those who got out of Paradise, and the horrors experienced by those who were trapped. Their accounts are intimate and unforgettable, including the local who left her home on foot as fire approached while her 82-year-old father stayed to battle it; the firefighter who drove into the heart of the inferno in his bulldozer; the police officer who switched on his body camera to record what he thought would be his final moments as the flames closed in; and the mother who, less than 12 hours after giving birth in the local hospital, thought she would die in the chaotic evacuation with her baby in her lap. Gee and Anguiano also explain the science of wildfires, write powerfully about the role of the power company PG&E in the blaze, and describe the poignant efforts to raise Paradise from the ruins. This is the story of a town at the forefront of a devastating global shift—of a remarkable landscape sucked ever drier of moisture and becoming inhospitable even to trees, now dying in their tens of millions and turning to kindling. It is also the story of a lost community, one that epitomized a provincial, affordable kind of Californian existence that is increasingly unattainable. It is, finally, a story of a new kind of fire behavior that firefighters have never witnessed before and barely know how to handle. What happened in Paradise was unprecedented in America. Yet according to climate scientists and fire experts, it will surely happen again.
Fire in the Sky: The Air War in the South Pacific
by Eric M. BergerudThis book explores the technology, tactics, 3-D battlefield, leadership, living conditions, medical challenges and morale of the combatants during WWII in the air over the Pacific.
Fire in Their Eyes: Wildfires and the People Who Fight Them
by Karen Magnuson BeilDepicts the training, equipment, and real-life experiences of people who risk their lives to battle wildfires, as well as people who use fire for ecological reasons.
Fire in Their Eyes: Wildfires and the People Who Fight Them
by Karen Magnuson BeilWhat drives some people to stand in the path of a wall of flame? Who are these brave, foolhardy, visionary firefighters? This intimate look at the elite groups that fight wildfires explores the trials, tragedies, and triumphs of these courageous few as they battle wilderness blazes from Alaska to Maine. From the grueling training of a smokejumper class in Montana, through harrowing fights with some up-close-and-personal wildfires, to a group of inspired conservationists who use fire as a tool for preservation, Karen Magnuson Beil takes readers where only a few have ventured--into the heart of one of nature's most destructive and unpredictable forces: fire.
The Fire Line: The Story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots and One of the Deadliest Days in American Firefighting
by Fernanda Santos“In Fernanda Santos’ expert hands, the story of 19 men and a raging wildfire unfolds as a riveting, pulse-pounding account of an American tragedy; and also as a meditation on manhood, brotherhood and family love. The Fire Line is a great and deeply moving book about courageous men and women.”- Héctor Tobar, author of Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine and the Miracle that Set Them Free.When a bolt of lightning ignited a hilltop in the sleepy town of Yarnell, Arizona, in June of 2013, setting off a blaze that would grow into one of the deadliest fires in American history, the twenty men who made up the Granite Mountain Hotshots sprang into action. An elite crew trained to combat the most challenging wildfires, the Granite Mountain Hotshots were a ragtag family, crisscrossing the American West and wherever else the fires took them. The Hotshots were loyal to one another and dedicated to the tough job they had. There's Eric Marsh, their devoted and demanding superintendent who turned his own personal demons into lessons he used to mold, train and guide his crew; Jesse Steed, their captain, a former Marine, a beast on the fire line and a family man who wasn’t afraid to say “I love you” to the firemen he led; Andrew Ashcraft, a team leader still in his 20s who struggled to balance his love for his beautiful wife and four children and his passion for fighting wildfires. We see this band of brothers at work, at play and at home, until a fire that burned in their own backyards leads to a national tragedy.Impeccably researched, drawing upon more than a hundred hours of interviews with the firefighters’ families, colleagues, state and federal officials, and fire historians and researchers, New York Times Phoenix Bureau Chief Fernanda Santos has written a riveting, pulse-pounding narrative of an unthinkable disaster, a remarkable group of men and the raging wildfires that threaten our country’s treasured wild lands.The Fire Line is the winner of the 2017 Spur Award for Best First Nonfiction Book, and Spur Award Finalist for Best Western Contemporary Nonfiction.
Fire Lookouts of Glacier National Park
by David R. ButlerThe first fire lookouts in the Glacier National Park region were simply high points atop mountain peaks with unimpeded views of the surrounding terrain. Widespread fires in the 1910s and 1920s led to the construction of more permanent lookouts, first as wooden pole structures and subsequently as a variety of one- and two-story cabin designs. Cooperating lookouts in Glacier Park, the Flathead National Forest, and the Blackfeet Indian Reservation provided coverage of forests throughout Glacier National Park. Beginning in the 1950s, many of the lookouts were decommissioned and eventually destroyed. This volume tells the story of the rise and fall of the extensive fire lookout network that protected Glacier National Park during times of high fire danger, including lookouts still operating today.
Fire Management in the American West: Forest Politics and the Rise of Megafires (G - Reference, Information And Interdisciplinary Subjects Ser.)
by Mark HudsonMost journalists and academics attribute the rise of wildfires in the western United States to the USDA Forest Service's successful fire-elimination policies of the twentieth century. However, in Fire Management in the American West, Mark Hudson argues that although a century of suppression did indeed increase the hazard of wildfire, the responsibility does not lie with the USFS alone. The roots are found in the Forest Service's relationships with other, more powerful elements of society--the timber industry in particular. Drawing on correspondence both between and within the Forest Service and the major timber industry associations, newspaper articles, articles from industry outlets, and policy documents from the late 1800s through the present, Hudson shows how the US forest industry, under the constraint of profitability, pushed the USFS away from private industry regulation and toward fire exclusion, eventually changing national forest policy into little more than fire policy. More recently, the USFS has attempted to move beyond the policy of complete fire suppression. Interviews with public land managers in the Pacific Northwest shed light on the sources of the agency's struggles as it attempts to change the way we understand and relate to fire in the West. Fire Management in the American West will be of great interest to environmentalists, sociologists, fire managers, scientists, and academics and students in environmental history and forestry.
Fire Management in the American West
by Mark HudsonMost journalists and academics attribute the rise of wildfires in the western United States to the USDA Forest Service's successful fire-elimination policies of the twentieth century. However, in Fire Management in the American West, Mark Hudson argues that although a century of suppression did indeed increase the hazard of wildfire, the responsibility does not lie with the USFS alone. The roots are found in the Forest Service's relationships with other, more powerful elements of society--the timber industry in particular. Drawing on correspondence both between and within the Forest Service and the major timber industry associations, newspaper articles, articles from industry outlets, and policy documents from the late 1800s through the present, Hudson shows how the US forest industry, under the constraint of profitability, pushed the USFS away from private industry regulation and toward fire exclusion, eventually changing national forest policy into little more than fire policy. More recently, the USFS has attempted to move beyond the policy of complete fire suppression. Interviews with public land managers in the Pacific Northwest shed light on the sources of the agency's struggles as it attempts to change the way we understand and relate to fire in the West. Fire Management in the American West will be of great interest to environmentalists, sociologists, fire managers, scientists, and academics and students in environmental history and forestry.
Fire, Native Peoples, and the Natural Landscape
by Thomas ValeFor nearly two centuries, the creation myth for the United States imagined European settlers arriving on the shores of a vast, uncharted wilderness. Over the last two decades, however, a contrary vision has emerged, one which sees the country's roots not in a state of "pristine" nature but rather in a "human-modified landscape" over which native peoples exerted vast control.Fire, Native Peoples, and the Natural Landscape seeks a middle ground between those conflicting paradigms, offering a critical, research-based assessment of the role of Native Americans in modifying the landscapes of pre-European America. Contributors focus on the western United States and look at the question of fire regimes, the single human impact which could have altered the environment at a broad, landscape scale, and which could have been important in almost any part of the West. Each of the seven chapters is written by a different author about a different subregion of the West, evaluating the question of whether the fire regimes extant at the time of European contact were the product of natural factors or whether ignitions by Native Americans fundamentally changed those regimes.An introductory essay offers context for the regional chapters, and a concluding section compares results from the various regions and highlights patterns both common to the West as a whole and distinctive for various parts of the western states. The final section also relates the findings to policy questions concerning the management of natural areas, particularly on federal lands, and of the "naturalness" of the pre-European western landscape.
Fire on the Mountain: The True Story Of The Sourth Canyon Fire
by John N MacleanIn 1994, a wildfire on Colorado's Storm King Mountain was wrongly identified at the outset as occurring in South Canyon.This unintentional, seemingly minor human error was the first in a string of mistakes that would be compounded into one of the greatest tragedies in the annals of firefighting. Before it was done, fourteen courageous firefighters—men and women, hotshots, smoke jumpers, and helicopter crew—would lose their lives battling the deadly so-called South Canyon blaze.John N. Maclean's award-winning national bestseller Fire on the Mountain is a stunning reconstruction of the killer conflagration and its aftermath—a page-turning true adventure of nature at its most unforgiving, and a powerful, indelible portrait of a unique breed of heroes who regularly and without question place their lives on the line.
Fire Phenomena and the Earth System: An Interdisciplinary Guide to Fire Science
by Claire M. BelcherFire plays a key role in Earth system processes. Wildfires influence the carbon cycle and the nutrient balance of our planet, and may even play a role in regulating the oxygen content of our atmosphere. The evolutionary history of plants has been intimately tied to fire and this in part explains the distribution of our ecosystems and their ability to withstand the effects of natural fires today. Fire Phenomena and the Earth System brings together the various subdisciplines within fire science to provide a synthesis of our understanding of the role of wildfire in the Earth system. The book shows how knowledge of fire phenomena and the nature of combustion of natural fuels can be used to understand modern wildfires, interpret fire events in the geological record and to understand the role of fire in a variety of Earth system processes. By bringing together chapters written by leading international researchers from a range of geological, environmental, chemical and engineering disciplines, the book will stimulate the exchange of ideas and knowledge across these subject areas. Fire Phenomena and the Earth System provides a truly interdisciplinary guide that can inform us about Earth’s past, present and beyond. Readership: Advanced students and researchers across a wide range of earth, environmental and life sciences, including biogeochemistry, paleoclimatology, atmospheric science, palaeontology and paleoecology, combustion science, ecology and forestry.
Fire Prevention Applications
by Brett Lacey Paul ValentineThis NEW updated text presents fire prevention methods for comprehensive risk reduction strategies in detail. Community coalition building to solve present-day community risk challenges is emphasized. <p><p>The book meets the FESHE model Fire Prevention Organization and Management course. It can be used as a guide to implement a modern fire prevention and risk reduction program. It also provides fire prevention organizational structures, staffing options; with emphasis on successfully overcoming the challenges fire prevention and risk reduction bureaus face today.
A Fire Runs through All Things: Zen Koans for Facing the Climate Crisis
by Susan MurphyAt a time of climate emergency, Zen koans show us how crisis itself can reveal the regenerative openness of life, mind, and being.Zen koans are a tradition of holistic inquiry based on &“encounter stories&” from East Asia&’s most radical Buddhist tradition. Turning this form of inquiry toward the climate crisis, Susan Murphy contends that koans can help us enter the mind of not-knowing, from which acceptance and possibility freely emerge. Koans reveal intimate, mythic, artful, playful, provocative, humorous, and fierce ways to engage the work of protecting and healing our world.The koans point firstly at ourselves—at the very nature of "self." Until we hold &“self&” as a live question rather than its own unquestioned answer, we&’re stuck looking on from the &“outside,&” hoping to engineer change upon a problem called &“climate crisis,&” all the time oblivious to the fact that we&’re swimming in a reality with no outside to it, an ocean of transformative energy. Do we dare relinquish our wish for absolute control and fearlessly surf the intensity of our feelings about the suffering earth?In addition to her use of dozens of traditional and new koans, Murphy illuminates the little-known Zen resonance with the oldest continuous body of indigenous wisdom on earth, summed up in the subtle Australian Aboriginal word Country. Murphy draws from her study and coteaching with Uncle Max (Dulumunmun) Harrison, a distinguished Yuin Elder, to show how this millennia-deep taproot of intelligence confirms the aliveness of the earth and the kinship of all beings.
Fire Science: From Chemistry to Landscape Management (Springer Textbooks in Earth Sciences, Geography and Environment)
by Francisco Castro Rego Penelope Morgan Paulo Fernandes Chad HoffmanThis textbook provides students and academics with a conceptual understanding of fire behavior and fire effects on people and ecosystems to support effective integrated fire management. Through case studies, interactive spreadsheets programmed with equations and graphics, and clear explanations, the book provides undergraduate, graduate, and professional readers with a straightforward learning path. The authors draw from years of experience in successfully teaching fundamental concepts and applications, synthesizing cutting-edge science, and applying lessons learned from fire practitioners. We discuss fire as part of environmental and human health. Our process-based, comprehensive, and quantitative approach encompasses combustion and heat transfer, and fire effects on people, plants, soils, and animals in forest, grassland, and woodland ecosystems from around the Earth. Case studies and examples link fundamental concepts to local, landscape, and global fire implications, including social-ecological systems. Globally, fire science and integrated fire management have made major strides in the last few decades. Society faces numerous fire-related challenges, including the increasing occurrence of large fires that threaten people and property, smoke that poses a health hazard, and lengthening fire seasons worldwide. Fires are useful to suppress fires, conserve wildlife and habitat, enhance livestock grazing, manage fuels, and in ecological restoration. Understanding fire science is critical to forecasting the implication of global change for fires and their effects. Increasing the positive effects of fire (fuels reduction, enhanced habitat for many plants and animals, ecosystem services increased) while reducing the negative impacts of fires (loss of human lives, smoke and carbon emissions that threaten health, etc.) is part of making fires good servants rather than bad masters.
Fire Trucks
by Amy TaoFirefighter Greg has an important job to do–he helps people who are in danger of being hurt by fire. He has a lot of equipment to help him do his job. A computer inside the fire truck shows Firefighter Greg exactly which house to go to. Ladders, rigs, and tools help get the job done! Can you name other equipment that will be needed for Firefighter Greg to help others, and be safe? How can you be safe at your house to prevent fires?
Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World
by John VaillantA stunning account of this century's most intense urban fire, and a panoramic exploration of the rapidly changing relationship between fire and humankind. In May 2016, Fort McMurray, Alberta, the hub of Canada's oil industry, was overrun by wildfire. The multi-billion-dollar disaster turned entire neighbourhoods into firebombs and drove 90,000 people from their homes in a single afternoon. Through the story of this apocalyptic conflagration, John Vaillant explores the past and the future of our ever-hotter, more flammable world.For hundreds of millennia, fire has been a partner in our evolution, shaping culture and civilization. Yet in our age of intensifying climate change, we are seeing its destructive power unleashed in ways never before witnessed by human beings. With masterly prose and cinematic style, Vaillant delves into the intertwined histories of the oil industry and climate science, the unprecedented devastation wrought by modern wildfires, and the lives forever changed by these disasters. Fire Weather is an urgent book for our new century of fire.'John Vaillant is one of the great poetic chroniclers of the natural world' David Wallace-Wells'A towering achievement; an immense work of research, reflection and imagination' Robert Macfarlane(P) 2023 Penguin Audio
Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World
by John Vaillant'Astounding on every page. John Vaillant is one of the great poetic chroniclers of the natural world' David Wallace-Wells'A towering achievement; an immense work of research, reflection and imagination' Robert MacfarlaneA gripping account of this century's most intense urban fire, and a panoramic exploration of the rapidly changing relationship between humanity and fire's fierce energy.In May 2016, Fort McMurray, Alberta, the hub of Canada's oil industry, was overrun by wildfire. The multi-billion-dollar disaster turned entire neighbourhoods into firebombs and drove 90,000 people from their homes in a single afternoon. Through the story of this apocalyptic conflagration, John Vaillant explores the past and the future of our ever-hotter, more flammable world.For hundreds of millennia, fire has been a partner in our evolution, shaping culture and civilization. Yet in our age of intensifying climate change, we are seeing its destructive power unleashed in ways never before witnessed by human beings. With masterly prose and cinematic style, Vaillant delves into the intertwined histories of the oil industry and climate science, the unprecedented devastation wrought by modern wildfires, and the lives forever changed by these disasters. Fire Weather is urgent reading for our new century of fire.