The Wheeler Centre

Join Pulitzer Prize-finalist John Vaillant for a searing 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 illuminating 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 unsparing account of how an overheated atmosphere, dry forest and omnipresent petroleum products came together to create a perfect firestorm. But this was not a one-off event. Vaillant argues that we have turned a corner in our relationship to fire – not just regionally, but climatically and planetarily.

In this panoramic exploration of modern wildfires, Vaillant offers a candid 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.