Firestorm

The Great Los Angeles Fires and America’s New Age of Disaster

De: Jacob Soboroff

Narrado por: Jacob Soboroff

A "gripping, unshakeable firsthand account" (San Francisco Chronicle) of the firestorm that consumed Los Angeles, from the MS NOW reporter and New York Times bestselling author of Separated, who covered the fires on the ground as an LA native. "Read[s] like a sci-fi thriller.” —Los Angeles Times

On the morning of January 7, 2025, a message pinged the phone of Jacob Soboroff, a national reporter for MS NOW. “Big Palisades fire. We are evacuating,” his brother texted within minutes of the blaze engulfing the hillside behind the home where he and his pregnant wife were living. “Really bad.” An attached photo showed a huge black plume rising from behind the house, an umbrella of smoke towering over everything they owned. Jacob rushed to the office of the bureau chief.

“I should go. I grew up in the Palisades.”

Soon he was on the front line of the blaze—his first live report of what would turn out to be weeks covering unimaginable destruction, from both the Palisades Fire and the Eaton Fire, in Altadena. In the days to come, Soboroff appeared across the networks of NBC News as Los Angeles was ablaze, met with displaced residents and workers, and pressed Governor Gavin Newsom in an interview on Meet the Press. But no story Soboroff has covered at home or abroad—the trauma of family separation at the border, the displacement of the war in Ukraine, the collapse of order in Haiti—could have prepared him for reporting live as the hallmarks of his childhood were engulfed in flames around him while his hometown burned to the ground.

But for Soboroff, questions remained after the fires were controlled: what had he just witnessed? How could it have happened? Is it inevitable something like it will happen again? This set Soboroff off on months of reporting—with firefighters, fire victims, political leaders, academics, earth scientists, wildlife biologists, meteorologists and more—that made him keenly aware of how the misfortune of seeing his past carbonize was also a form of time travel into the dystopian world his children will inhabit. This is because the 2025 LA fires were not an isolated tragedy, but rather they are a harbinger—"the fire of the future," in the words of one senior emergency—management official.

Firestorm is the story of the costliest wildfire in American history, the people it affected and the deeply personal connection to one journalist covering it. It is a love letter to Los Angeles, a yearning to understand the fires, and why America’s new age of disaster we are living through portends that—without a reckoning of how Los Angeles burned—there is more yet, and worse, to come.

Profound Reporting

Jacob has put journalism back to where it belongs in America's discourse after the administration's attempt at dishonoring the media. Jacob's work on the border separation crisis, the LA fires, and everything in between he has covered give me hope that some talented persons among us, especially Jacob, keep America fully informed and on the right track.
This book is riveting, fast-paced, and edge- of-your-seat factual drama. The story could only have been told through Jacob's eyes as he watches his childhood neighborhood go up in flames.

Great Reporting

Jacob gave detailed insight on these horrible fires in Southern California in 2025. I appreciated the personal reporting in his hometown of Pacific Palisades plus the inside information on the totally unnecessary political lies. Thank you to all the firefighters.

Resilience

Thank you, Jacob the first person presentation drew the listener and by being presented by the writer and immersing the listener in the actual events as though they were occurring naturally at this moment in time

Excellent Journalism

Jacob Soboroff was able to blend his own experiences with those of dozens of others to provide a most comprehensive account of the tragic fire events of January, 2025. He put the same energy and compassion into this book as he does to all his on-air reporting. The audio book in the author's own voice adds to the experience.

Heartfelt

Was exactly as I’d hoped- a journalist’s vulnerable account of the unfathomable happening in his own neighborhood.