Fire Weather

Reviews

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER

WINNER OF THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION
WINNER OF THE 2024 SHAUGHNESSY COHEN PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING
FINALIST FOR THE 2023 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
SHORTLISTED FOR THE HILARY WESTON WRITERS' TRUST PRIZE FOR NONFICTION
FINALIST FOR THE 2023 BANFF MOUNTAIN BOOK COMPETITION
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 HUBERT EVANS NON-FICTION PRIZE
FINALIST FOR THE 2024 PULITZER PRIZE IN NON-FICTION
LONGLISTED FOR THE J.W. DAFOE BOOK PRIZE

ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES' 10 BEST BOOKS OF 2023
ONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S BEST BOOKS OF 2023
ONE OF TIME'S BEST BOOKS OF 2023
ONE OF THE CBC'S BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF 2023

“All-too-timely. . . . The real protagonist here is the fire itself: an unruly and terrifying force with insatiable appetites. This book is both a real-life thriller and a moment-by-moment account of what happened—and why, as the climate changes and humans don’t, it will continue to happen again and again.” —The New York Times, ”10 Best Books of 2023”

“A gripping depiction of the blaze’s devastating trajectory. . . . The book’s true protagonist is fire, which Vaillant treats like a living, breathing creature that is destined to grow even more dangerous as the world becomes even more combustible. At a time when wildfires are dominating news cycles, Fire Weather is not just a timely and stunning account of recent history—it’s also a frightening preview of what could become our new normal. —Shannon Carlin, TIME Magazine's ”100 Must-Read Books of 2023”

“This timely and riveting account of the 2016 McMurray wildfire explores not just that Canadian inferno but what it bodes for the future. Vaillant has a chillingly serious message: This is the inevitable result of climate change, and it will happen again and again.” —The New York Times, ”100 Notable Books of 2023”

“A gripping narrative and a loud wake-up call. . . . Impossible to stop [reading].” —The Washington Post

“A meticulous and meditative account of the changing landscape of Canadian fire. . . . [Fire Weather is] mesmerizing . . . and unfortunately, exquisitely timed.” —David Wallace-Wells, The New York Times

“Engrossing. . . . No book feels timelier than John Vaillant's Fire Weather, a deeply reported narrative of one of Canada's most destructive recent wildfires [and. . .] an adrenaline-soaked nightmare that is impossible to put down.” —The Times

“Fire Weather is easily the most important book published this year. . .  It is truly vital reading, for everyone; it will leave you shaken and, hopefully, stirred to action.” —Toronto Star

“Gripping. . . . A real-life fable about the causes and consequences of climate change.” —The New York Times Book Review

“An urgent warning—and an all-consuming read. . . . [Fire Weather is] meticulous in its detail, both human and geological in its scale, and often shocking in its conclusions.” —The Guardian

“Few books on climate change have so viscerally captured the destruction we’ve wrought by our reckless addiction to petrochemicals as John Valliant’s Fire Weather. . . . Vaillant . . . describ[es] in detail the hellaciously hot towers of flames spawned by a fire tornado that tore through [Fort McMurray]. . . . This is all captivating, terrifying stuff, especially through Valliant’s excellent telling. . . . Valliant is masterful at dropping the reader into such scenes: barbecue propane tanks exploding like bombs; garages storing sundry combustibles; a man in shorts and a T-shirt using a bulldozer blade as a blast shield. . . . You almost feel as if the paroxysmal blazes will burn to the last page.” —New York Review of Books

“Intimate and global, harrowing and touching, terrifying and yet surprisingly inspirational, the book fills a hole in the best climate reportage to date. It may prove to do more than any book that came before by evoking horror on every page: horror at the world we’ve tarnished, horror at the greed that we’ve let rule.” —The Walrus

“Scrupulously and thoroughly researched. . . . [Fire Weather has] the momentum of a thriller—or a horror novel—as the implacable, relentless flames drive through the city, seeming at times alive. . . . Vaillant . . . one of Canada’s most respected non-fiction writers, has not only delivered his best book, but probably one of the finest books of the year. . . . An absolutely compelling read.” —Toronto Star

“What makes Fire Weather so good is its in-depth analysis of the moral, political, environmental and even anthropological background to both the climate crisis and our relationship with fire in all its forms. . . . If we are to lift up our eyes and embrace the truth, then we all need to heed this powerful book.” —The Spectator

“Valliant tells his story at a disaster-movie pace. . . .A disaster book of epic proportions [that] should shake us out of our climate-change stupor.” —Financial Times

“Searing. . . . Vaillant concedes that we've made Earth a fire planet. His robust and vivid writing, detailed reporting, and urgent concern for the environment make for sizzling reading.” —Booklist

“Fire Weather is a gripping book that brings readers to the front lines of a major forest fire, while also exploring the intertwined history of oil and gas development and the study of climate change. Its lessons should not be soon forgotten.” —Science

“Intense and vivid. . . . The fire’s story is propulsive and terrifying . . . [with] detailed scenes from around Fort McMurray. . . . As in his previous books . . . Vaillant . . . is interested in telling a larger story about humans and our interactions with the natural world.” —Quill & Quire

“[Fire Weather] is a fast-paced narrative of a disastrous wildfire and of the culture that both created the fire and was damaged by it. And it is a brilliantly written description of our own insights and follies: we saw the present disaster coming long ago. We could have prevented it, and we let it happen anyway.” —The Tyee

“Skillfully examines the interconnected narratives of the oil industry and climate science, the immense devastation caused by modern wildfires, and the lasting impacts on the lives of those affected by these disasters. . . . A meticulously researched, beautifully told, and vitally relevant account.” —Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction jury citation

“Fire Weather reveals to readers a character as ruthless, creative, and destructive as any in modern literature: fire itself. . . . John Vaillant traces how Canada’s geological and economic history have converged to transform fire from a useful tool into an existential threat to our way of life.” —2023 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction judges

“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

“In John Vaillant’s vivid anatomy of the apocalyptic Fort McMurray inferno, the histories of humankind’s ever-accelerating consumption of fossil fuel, and of our ever-increasing vulnerability to extreme wildfire, converge with the relentlessness of fate—and the urgency of prophecy.” —Philip Gourevitch

“A compulsively readable journey into our fiery times. At the center, Vaillant gives us fire itself as a character—fast, hungry, and evolving to shape the warming decades to come. You might never hear an engine or watch a bonfire the same way again.” —Bathsheba Demuth

“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

“The Fort McMurray fire was a vortex of people, ideas, institutions, forest, oil, city, and wind, the quirky and the existential, all mutating under the wanton impress of the Anthropocene Age. Fire Weather offers a compelling account of that tragedy, and a reimagining of a pyric infection that threatens to remake the planet.” —Stephen Pyne

“Searing. . . . Vaillant concedes that we've made Earth a fire planet. His robust and vivid writing, detailed reporting, and urgent concern for the environment make for sizzling reading.” —Booklist

“A gripping account of the May 2016 fire that engulfed the city of Fort McMurray . . . 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 Expand reviews