Fire Weather

A page-turning account of a brutal urban wildfire, and a sweeping exploration of our rapidly changing relationship with fire

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THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER, WINNER OF THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE

A Pulitzer Prize Finalist
A National Book Award Finalist
A Writers' Trust Award Finalist
Shortlisted for the Wainwright Conservation Prize

A Guardian Book of the Year
A New York Times Book of the Year


'No book feels timelier . . . an adrenaline-soaked nightmare that is 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 century's most intense urban fire, and an urgent examination of humanity's future in an ever-hotter, more flammable world.