Fire Weather

A True Story from a Hotter World

By: John Vaillant

Narrated by: Alan Carlson

Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

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, 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.


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

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2023 John Vaillant (P)2023 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Alan Carlson delivers this intense account of a massive fire with controlled urgency. His slight Canadian accent adds to the narration. He measures his delivery, deliberately paces the stories, and unspools the remarkable trajectory of the wildfire that ultimately engulfed one million and a half acres.... This audiobook tells the climate-change backstory in meticulous detail while describing what happened to the city and its citizens. Subtitled "A True Story from a Hotter World," the story is ominous, predictive, and frightening." (AudioFile)

“Riveting, spellbinding, astounding on every page. John Vaillant is one of the great poetic chroniclers of the natural world, and here he captures the majesty and horror of one of its great disasters—and what made it tragically possible.” —David Wallace-Wells, #1 bestselling author of The Uninhabitable Earth

"Fire Weather is a towering achievement: an immense work of research, reflection and imagination that will, I believe, come to be seen as a landmark in non-fiction reportage on the Anthropocene, or what Vaillant here calls 'the Petrocene' -- that epoch defined primarily by humanly enhanced combustion. Fire Weather is extraordinary in terms of its scope and range; it also sings and surprises at the level of the sentence. It grips like a philosophical thriller, warns like a beacon, and shocks to the core." —Robert Macfarlane, bestselling author of Underland

"A gripping account of the May 2016 fire that engulfed the city of Fort McMurray in the Canadian province of Alberta, destroying thousands of homes and forcing the evacuation of 88,000 people. [Vaillant's] vivid description of the conflagration...is set against the Dantean backdrop of Fort McMurray’s oil-sands mining industry, one of the dirtiest outposts of the fossil fuels sector....Vaillant’s exploration of this material is rich and illuminating, and his prose punchy and cinematic....The result is an engrossing disaster tale with a potent message." —Publishers Weekly

The Science of Fire

I listened to this audiobook for book club as it was suggested by a member of the club. I did enjoy listening to the book but I'm not sure I would of made it through if I actually read the book. The author is very detailed in his description of the oil and gas industry and the science of fire. The character development of the people involved was well done. The story takes place in a place in Canada that burnt to the ground in a community made up of oil and gas industry workers. It's a true, tragic story of how fire can destroy. Throughout the book the author does describe the connection between the environment and the science of fire. It is worth the listen if you are able to get through the technical descriptions. One of the book club members described it as " like reading a text book". I enjoyed how he delved into each person's personal life and how they fit into the story of events.

Read this book TODAY!!!

Jaw dropping depictions of devastation, and hard truths. The author uses compassion but is not afraid to be blunt about the future we face.

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.

Essential reading.

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

Sobering Description of Current and Future Threats

This books helps make the future changes climate a real and frightening place. I learned a lot and better understand what we have wrought, and what we can expect in the years ahead, and clearly calls out what has led to this snd where we must change as a species.

A must Listen

Telling one of the most important stories of our existence. The author explains our place in history, how we discovered our future and how things are going.

Detailed description of horrific Canadian fire.

Narration is better than merely adequate. Certainly it is clear, just lacking nuances artfully rendered by the best narrators.

Material is detailed and interesting. If, as I, you know nothing about Alberta, its inhabitants, the culture, geography, or the economy, then this is a worthwhile listen.

Some interesting facts (e.g., that the populace is quite young, most under 30; the trucks are enormous and often travel at high speed on black ice (Yikes!), there are relatively few women available, which must make for the young men limited opportunity to satisfy—uh hum—companionship needs, outsized drug and alcohol addictions, exceptionally demanding work schedules under depressing atmospheric and ugly working conditions even the buildings appear to have been constructed to crush the spirit), and the arduous procedures to extract oil from rock-like mud.

None of this sounds pleasant, but the pay is exponential. Workers easily earn $100–200K per annum. A lot if good it does them, though. To combat the loneliness and soul killing of cultural, community stimulation, along with lack of female companionship, the men resort to drugs, alcohol, expensive pickups driven fast and recklessly, and violence.

I had no idea life was so difficult in Alberta. No wonder K D Lang spends as much time on the road as possible.

Recommended.

Fantastic

This book went far beyond my expectations, and the narrator was excellent. I have read many books about wildfire, from Norman Maclean’s Young Men and Fire to Stephen Pyne’s Pyrocene, and in my opinion this ranks among the best. The author wonderfully combined people’s experiences with history and science (and some history of science) to produce a complete, rounded account of the fire. Thank you for this excellent book!

Excellent story and a huge warning for our earth

Found this book very interesting. Enjoyed the history around fossil fuels and the danger they bring to our earth and mankind. Also the fire was unimaginable. I cannot fathom living through that experience.

Multidimensional Excellence

John Vaillant successfully combines detailed history, science, and sociology with remarkable storytelling to give an unparalleled understanding of the current state of fire and the implications for modern civilization.