John Vaillant: Fire Weather

Join Pulitzer Prize-nominated John Vaillant for an exploration of one of Canada’s worst wildfires, as he forecasts the future of living in an ever hotter, ever more flammable world.

From the Black Saturday bushfires to the wildfires that devastated Los Angeles in January, it has become abundantly clear that we’re living through ever intensifying and destructive fire events. But what has brought us here?

In this discussion, John Vaillant uses the 2016 fires in Fort McMurray, Canada, as a case study to reveal the intertwined histories of the oil industry and climate science, offering an account of how an overheated atmosphere, dry forest and omnipresent petroleum products came together to create a perfect firestorm.

In this exploration of modern wildfires, Vaillant offers an examination of the moral, political, environmental and anthropological background to both the climate crisis and our relationship with fire in all its forms. With host Jo Lauder.