WHEN IT ALL BURNS

The heat and history at the frontlines of an elite hotshot firefighting crew.

Joining the Los Padres Hotshots crew was an endeavor so intense that the interview alone involved answering questions while climbing a trail at a pace extreme enough that it verged on causing a blackout. As an elite firefighting crew, the hotshots are tasked with containing the most intense megafires and asked to do the most extreme work. 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. An anthropologist, he’s closely attuned to the hypermasculinity and culture of men sleeping in the dirt, putting their bodies through extreme situations, and holding conflicting ideals about the environment. The writing is powerful enough that the book does not sacrifice the more embodied intensity of the front lines for its meticulous research and intellectual analysis, instead managing to hold multiple realities taut. Perhaps the strongest segment of the book comes in its explosive analysis of the firefighting industry that reads as an exposé. “Megafires emerge from a series of fractured relationships—between fire, the land, our institutions, and each other,” he writes, describing fire suppression and the resulting megafires as “the war on nature.” He talks candidly about what scientists call the sacrifice zone: “a place where low-income people shoulder the burden of industrial misconduct.” In this case, that means the hotshots, who are highly trained essential firefighters who could be one injury away from bankruptcy—contrasting with the firefighting industry, where a handful of individuals make massive profits from salvage logging, among other means. Thomas doesn’t shy away from the harsh realities of the fire economy, maintaining the thriller-like momentum, but there’s hope to be found here, too. With prescribed burn sites, community organizing, and sequoias wrapped in fire blankets, the future is something to fight for. This book raises up that fight.

Thinking about fire has never been more essential—Thomas charts a map toward the future.