In the summer, for some reason, I tend to gravitate more towards books with lots of action. And Fire Weather: On the Front Lines of a Burning World by John Vaillant, certainly does not disappoint in that department!

The book gives a precise, almost minute-by-minute, account of what happened in the Canadian city of Fort McMurray in May 2016, when an apocalyptic wildfire overran the city (which, not coincidentally, is the beating heart of the country’s oil industry and the biggest foreign supplier of oil to the US).

But the book also puts that event in context by detailing the economic and political history of the region, the science and history of wildfire, and the impacts that fire has and will increasingly have on human communities in the age of the climate crisis.

The writing is gripping and masterful. The underlying research is thorough and impressive. And the topic is crucially important, especially to everyone living in the North American West and the other parts of the world increasingly at risk for catastrophic fires.