In the light of recent fire emergencies on the Greek islands and in the wider Mediterranean, this book has just acquired even more relevance. It centres on another catastrophe in May 2016, a Canadian inferno nicknamed the ‘Beast’, which has become the most expensive natural disaster in the country’s history.
Within three weeks, Fort McMurray’s blaze had incinerated an area the size of Cumbria
Within five days of its discovery, the blaze had forced the mass evacuation of 90,000 residents from the city of Fort McMurray in Alberta Province. In just three weeks, egged on by an El Niño cycle as well as fierce winds and record temperatures across America’s subarctic belt, it had incinerated an area equal to the county of Cumbria. The resulting firestorm of 760°C vaporised 2,500 homes and released 100 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere.
John Vaillant unfolds these fateful days in all their hellish detail. Ironically, for me they entail one lack of judgment in an otherwise flawless book.
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