#350 | Fire Weather w/ John Vaillant

Acclaimed author John Vaillant joins me to discuss Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast, a masterfully written chronicle of the destructive power of fire in the twenty-first century.

Fire Weather is an astounding chronicle of the boreal fire that swept through Fort McMurray, Alberta in May 2016. Over the course of 24 hours, the nearly 90,000 residents of this modern-day bitumen subarctic boom town evacuated, escaping the out of control fire as it eviscerated everything in its path. Vaillant zooms in close, guiding us through the decisions made that day as the fire raced into the city, made by residents and authorities alike as catastrophe unfolded. He expands the story to situate Fort Mac as a nexus point in the larger settler colonial history of Canada and its inextricable relationship with the fossil fuel industry and extractive capitalism, all situated within our present paradigm of ecological crisis, climate change, and 21st century fire.

John Vaillant's acclaimed, award-winning nonfiction books, The Golden Spruce and The Tiger, were national bestsellers. His debut novel, The Jaguar's Children, was a finalist for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award. Vaillant has received the Governor General's Literary Award, British Columbia's National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction, the Windham-Campbell Literature Prize, and the Pearson Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction. He has written for, among others, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, National Geographic, and The Walrus. He lives in Vancouver.



Episode Notes:

- Read the transcript: https://lastborninthewilderness.substack.com/p/fire-weather-john-vaillant



- Purchase a copy of Fire Weather from Bookshop: https://bit.ly/3s9CqHZ

- Follow John Vaillant on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JohnVaillant

- The song featured is “Theia” by Nick Vander from the album Kodama (Nowaki’s Selection), used with permission by the artist. Listen and purchase at: https://nickvander.bandcamp.com

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