Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World

Fire Weather is an account of the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire in Alberta, Canada, which forced the evacuation of more than 88,000 residents and destroyed much of the town. John Vaillant describes the conditions that made such a fire possible, including unseasonably warm temperatures, strong winds, low humidity and dry ground. He follows the fire from its discovery in the boreal forest on the edge of town, through the slow official response and a frantic evacuation, to the point at which it grew large enough to create its own weather and residents began calling it ‘the Beast’. The book has also been published under other subtitles.