PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • A NEW YORK TIMES TOP TEN BOOK OF THE YEAR • FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN NONFICTION • FINALIST FOR THE PEN/GALBRAITH AWARD FOR NONFICTION • A stunning account of a colossal wildfire and a panoramic exploration of the rapidly changing relationship between fire and humankind from the award-winning, best-selling author of The Tiger and The Golden Spruce • Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, TIME, NPR, Slate, and Smithsonian “Grips like a philosophical thriller, warns like a beacon, and shocks to the core." —Robert Macfarlane, bestselling author of Underland “Riveting, spellbinding, astounding on every page.” —David Wallace-Wells, #1 bestselling author of The Uninhabitable Earth In May 2016, Fort McMurray, the hub of Canada’s oil industry and America’s biggest foreign supplier, was overrun by wildfire. The multi-billion-dollar disaster melted vehicles, turned entire neighborhoods into firebombs, and drove 88,000 people from their homes in a single afternoon. Through the lens of this apocalyptic conflagration—the wildfire equivalent of Hurricane Katrina—John Vaillant warns that this was not a unique event, but a shocking preview of what we must prepare for in a hotter, more flammable world. Fire has been a partner in our evolution for hundreds of millennia, shaping culture, civilization, and, very likely, our brains. Fire has enabled us to cook our food, defend and heat our homes, and power the machines that drive our titanic economy. Yet this volatile energy source has always threatened to elude our control, and in our new age of intensifying climate change, we are seeing its destructive power unleashed in previously unimaginable ways. With masterly prose and a cinematic eye, Vaillant takes us on a riveting journey through the intertwined histories of North America’s oil industry and the birth of climate science, to the unprecedented devastation wrought by modern forest fires, and into lives forever changed by these disasters. John Vaillant’s urgent work is a book for—and from—our new century of fire, which has only just begun. "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" “Few books on climate change have so viscerally captured the destruction we’ve wrought....This is all captivating, terrifying stuff, especially through Vaillant’s excellent storytelling....You almost feel as if the paroxysmal blazes will burn to the last page.” —John Washington, New York Review of Books "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" "Gripping...Vaillant takes readers back into the deep history of the boreal forests before thrusting us into the Beast’s fiery heart. Fire Weather is a report from the front lines of environmental cataclysm and a prediction of what more will surely come." —Neda Ulaby, NPR "A gripping narrative and a loud wake-up call....Impossible to stop [reading]." —Becca Rothfield, The Washington Post "Vaillant writes so vividly that he can make subjects like the mining of bituminous sand...fascinating....A timely warning of more smoke to come." —Laura Miller, Slate "Provides a refreshingly clear explanation of this hazy, uncanny moment in the earth's history...Vaillant is the type of journalist who picks a single narrative and monomaniacally researches it, plunging himself deeper and deeper into the murky details, and then emerges, many years later, with a small universe cupped in his hands....By turns heart-racing and horrifying." —Robert Moor, New York Magazine "Riveting....A minute-by-minute disaster-movie narrative of the inferno....A deserved winner of this year’s Baillie Gifford nonfiction prize." —Guardian, "Book of the Year: Best Ideas Books" “A visceral reported account ... Fire Weather is a horror story in three dimensions. . . . As Vaillan