Vaillant’s Fire Weather looks at devastating synergy between our dependence on fossil fuels and its impact on the climate

Below is an excerpt from Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast, by John Vaillant, published by Knopf Canada, one of the five finalists for this year's Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing.
Author John Vaillant: 'Anyone concerned about the future of our nation, and why a—quarter of a million—Canadians were forced to flee their homes due to wildfires last summer.'

On a hot afternoon in May 2016, five miles outside the young petro city of Fort McMurray, Alta., a small wildfire flickered and ventilated, rapidly expanding its territory through a mixed forest that hadn’t seen fire in decades.

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