Fire weather : a true story from a hotter world / John Vaillant.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Vaillant, John, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Forest fires--North America--History.

Forest fires.

Wildfires--North America--History.

Wildfires.

Climatic changes.

Forest fires--Environmental aspects.

climate change.

North America.

Genre:

History

Physical Description:

414 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (chiefly color), maps ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition

Place of Publication:

New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2023.

Summary:

"In May 2016, the city of Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada, burned to the ground, forcing 88,000 people to flee their homes. It was the largest evacuation ever of a city in the face of a forest fire, raising the curtain on a new age of increasingly destructive wildfires. This book is a suspenseful account of one of North America's most devastating forest fires--and a stark exploration of our dawning era of climate catastrophes"-- Provided by publisher.

"A stunning, panoramic exploration of the symbiotic relationship between humans and combustion and why we are entering a new century of fire. In May 2016, the city of Fort McMurray in Alberta--the seat of the Canadian oil industry, from which the U.S. derives almost half its oil imports--burned to the ground. The unprecedented disaster forced 88,000 people from their homes and showed us what the fires of the future look like: increasingly destructive, already here. While the chemistry and physics of wildfires remain unchanged over the last century and a half, climate change has created conditions that give fire exponentially more opportunity to burn. And yet there is no other natural force or element over which we have such a compelling illusion of control. Fire yearns, above all, for freedom, and takes at any opportunity and at any cost. In our unchecked consumption of fossil fuels, it has enabled the same impulses in us. In masterly prose and cinematic style, John Vaillant weaves together an enthralling, multifaceted story of how Fort McMurray revealed a new normal of fires burning longer and with greater intensity than at any other time this planet has ever known. From the large-scale histories of North American resource extraction and climate science, to the intimate tales of lives scarred by the Fort McMurray disaster, Valliant's urgent work is a book for--and from--our new century of fire."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Origin stories

Fire weather

Reckoning.

Notes:

"This is a Borzoi book." -- title page verso.

Includes bibliographical references (page 365-401) and index.

Local Notes:

Athenaeum copy: Burt fund bookplate.

ISBN:

9781524732851

1524732850

9780525434245

0525434240

OCLC:

1380367528