I was much more interested in the parts about the actual fire which occurred in 2016 in northern Alberta Canada along with the people involved and the destruction it did than I was in the scientific underpinnings.  That said, I got quite an education about a variety of things.   As David Enrich wrote in The NY Times in June 2023, 

Fire Weather: A True Story From a Hotter World
by John Vaillant
2023 / 
Read by Alan Carlson 14h 18m
Rating: 8/ science-environment-climate change

“Is fire alive?” the journalist and author John Vaillant asks early in his new book, “Fire Weather.” I rolled my eyes, even as Vaillant ticks off a dozen lifelike characteristics — it grows, it breathes, it travels in search of nourishment — because the answer seemed so obvious: No. Of course not…Some 300 pages later, the question didn’t feel quite so ludicrous.”  

This is the whole story of the Fort McMurray Fire, Alberta’s largest wildfire evacuation and the costliest disaster in Canadian history. By “whole story” I mean it covers the origins of the forest, the origins of what we know as western civilization up there, the oil industry these people brought, the way bitumen works, and the troubles it’s all causing.  The main idea is that scientists have been warning us for generations now – this is what it’s like – and it’s worse than they thought. 

I was going to put a photo in here of the Fort McMurray Fire but when I went to Google it I was amazed by so many photos, available in so many places. The book has a few photos and the PDF file at Audible has a few more.  The graph of temperature anomalies provided by NOAA is outstanding and the original.  “Global Temperature Anomalies – Graphing Tool. Climate at a Glance: Time Series – Global”

https://www.climate.gov/maps-data/dataset/global-temperature-anomalies-graphing-tool

Fort Mcmurrey, Alberta housed 88,000 workers and their families to dig bitumen out of the ground in northern Alberta.  It was hard work but they earned good money. They almost always chose to leave at the end of their time there.  But while they l lived there many thought they had a pretty good life with nice, if expensive, homes and lots of toys.  It was a lethal madhouse getting out.  

What else Vailliant explores are all the indicators which should have given pause to the owners and overseers of the mines, not just to the scientists.  But an industry which makes as much money as oil does isn’t going to just go away because of one (of five) horrendous fires.  

Most people are aware of climate change now but this book tells the reader that this new kind of fire, in and of itself, is part of it. And it’s not going away.  A lot of our history, museums, art and architecture, whole universities are going up in smoke. This is to say nothing of the resources, food and plant products are being destroyed. These fires are so hot they crack and break huge boulders. 

I know I’ll remember this book when I hear about fires anywhere in the world – from California forests to Siberia and from the Australian outback to Brazil – everywhere.  (There aren’t so many big ones in Africa, but they get a lot of smaller ones and their fire crews go everywhere.)