The recap
In May 2016 a wildfire overran Fort McMurray, the Alberta boomtown that serves Canada's oil sands, and more than 88,000 people had to flee. John Vaillant reconstructs those days in close detail, through firefighters, families and the behaviour of the fire itself, with a tension worthy of a thriller. But the blaze is also his way into a much larger story. He traces the history of humanity's relationship with fire, the rise of the oil industry and the bitumen beneath Alberta's boreal forest, and the slow accumulation of climate science that predicted exactly this kind of disaster. He explains what fire weather means, why hotter and drier conditions make flames behave in ways that stun even veterans, and how a society built on burning fossil fuels came to be so unprepared for the consequences. The book rarely lectures; it shows, through vivid reporting and clear science, how a changing climate can arrive with terrible speed. Readers finish it understanding that fires like this are no longer freak events but part of a pattern.
Why read it
For readers who want to understand the climate crisis through one gripping, human story rather than charts, and for anyone who loves narrative nonfiction with real stakes.
Fun facts
- 01
It won the 2023 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, worth £50,000; the organisers said it was the first time climate change had been the subject of a winning book.
- 02
It was a finalist for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction.
- 03
It was also a finalist for the 2023 National Book Award for Nonfiction.
- 04
The fire at its centre forced the evacuation of more than 88,000 residents of Fort McMurray.
