"The dramatic true story of an unprecedented wildfire bearing down on a city."
John Vaillant’s Fire Weather: A True Story From a Hotter World is a gripping account of the 2016 wildfire that ravaged Fort McMurray, Alberta, forcing the evacuation of 90,000 people. The cover notes inform that Vaillant is a cinematic writer, and they aren’t kidding. At times this reads like the script for a disaster movie, as we become acquainted with a place and its characters, knowing all the time that a monster is out there in the woods and it’s heading this way. The fact that the city is built on the riches of our petrochemical industry adds a cold irony to the tale.
No punches are pulled in describing this living force as it breathes, moves and consumes everything in its path. Metaphors and analogies burn off every page, but the story never falls into the trap of being over-sensational. This is a serious book about a very serious moment. The chemistry of fire is perfectly explained, as is climate science and indeed the actions taken or not taken by politicians and business leaders which have led us to where we are today.
Vaillant explains “fire weather” as the increasingly common coincidence of certain atmospheric and ground conditions, making fires more likely and more extreme. The book made me think that there will be a moment perhaps, and maybe we are not far from it, where fire weather is not only “conditions” but actual weather, requiring forecasts. The people of this town deserved a better one. The evacuation of Fort McMurray came later than it should as no one could quite believe what was happening. When it finally does come, the descriptions of bumper-to-bumper traffic crawling at a torturous pace past burning sidewalks is knuckle-whitening.
The experienced firefighters who say they’ve never encountered anything like the Fort McMurray blaze suggest that we are on the brink of facing new kinds of fire, more deadly and unpredictable than ever. In the back half of the book Vaillant shares more stories from other parts of the world, equally portentous, which suggest we may already be there. “Fire tornados” and “Urban Wildfire Interfaces” are terms, I fear, that are about to enter the wider public vocabulary.
Fire Weather is the latest chapter in a human story that goes back millennia, when we would use fire to keep warm, cook and keep predators at bay. Today, fire has evolved to be the predator, and the fires of the future are likely unimaginable. An informative read, but chilling..
Join John Vaillant on the London Mountain Podcast discussing Fire Weather, the true story of the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire in Alberta, its impact on the city, and the future threat of fire as an evolving, living thing.
| Primary Genre | Popular Science |
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