A hotshot firefighter’s gripping firsthand account of a record-setting fire season
Eighteen of California’s largest wildfires on record have burned in the past two decades. Scientists recently invented the term “megafire” to describe wildfires that behave in ways that would have been nearly impossible just a generation ago, burning through winter, exploding in the night, and devastating landscapes historically impervious to incendiary destruction.
In When It All Burns, wildland firefighter and anthropologist Jordan Thomas recounts a single, brutal six-month fire season with the Los Padres Hotshots—the special forces of America’s firefighters. Being a hotshot is among the most difficult jobs on earth. Thomas viscerally renders his crew’s attempts to battle flames that are often too destructive to contain. He uncovers the hidden cultural history of megafires, revealing how humanity’s symbiotic relationship with wildfire became a war—and what can be done to change it back.
Thomas weaves ecology and the history of Indigenous peoples’ oppression, federal forestry, and the growth of the fire industrial complex into a riveting narrative about a new phase in the climate crisis. It’s an immersive story of community in the most perilous of circumstances, told with humor, humility, and affection.
“A fascinating account of life as a hotshot—but also an insightful and nuanced take on how we might learn to coexist a little more sensibly with the flames we’ve unleashed on this earth. Reading this is a little akin to having an escape plan from your house: useful preparation.”
—Bill McKibben, author The End of Nature
“Jordan Thomas draws on his experience as a hotshot to tell a story that’s as scary and exciting as a wildfire. When It All Burns manages to be at once deeply personal and far-reaching in scope.”
—Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Under a White Sky and The Sixth Extinction
“Thomas brings us to the front lines, deftly pulling the reader to the edge of the fire in evocative writing that reads like a thriller… Thinking about fire has never been more essential—Thomas charts a map toward the future.” —Kirkus (starred review)
“Writing with exceptional verve, Thomas captures the furious intensity of working on the fire line. . . . Narrative nonfiction doesn’t get better than this.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Profoundly relevant. . . . Thomas, in this spellbinding account, shows how thoughtful forestry management can begin to address the megafires now touching all of our lives.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“In this engrossing work on wildfires and the environment, Thomas skillfully weaves together how historical events, genocide, politics, and the logging industry have all contributed to climate change, creating megafires throughout the American West”
—Library Journal
“It is rare and wonderful when an author emerges perfectly matched to a subject and a book that also captures the spirit of the times. This gripping, deeply perceptive first-hand encounter with the devastating ferocity of 21st Century Fire reads like the Kitchen Confidential of elite wildfire fighting.”
—John Vaillant, author of Fire Weather
“With fluid, cliché-free prose, Jordan Thomas transforms his immersive experience with the Los Padres hotshots into a fiercely personal prism for interpreting how fires like those the crew faced could happen and what they mean. A welcome companion for understanding the fires yet to come.”
—Stephen Pyne, author of The Pyrocene. How We Created an Age of Fire, and What Happens Next
