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Red Flag Warning: Mutual Aid and Survival in California’s Fire Country
Two survivors of California fires compile a guide for living physically, mentally, and emotionally amid ecological destruction.
When warm temperatures, low humidity, and strong winds combine they produce an increased risk of fire danger called a "red flag warning"—a common event in Northern California. Through essays and interviews, Red Flag Warning sheds light on how wildfire impacts our communities and offers wisdom on living with fire from Indigenous Californians, community organizers, mental health care workers, environmentalists, fire analysts, sustainable loggers, parents, and more.
The collection explores the ways these fires take root and impact rural and urban Northern California, it examines our relationships to place and community and to understand the importance of mutual aid, organizing, community care, land stewardship, and resilience. Red Flag Warning covers the stories not frequently found in the often disaster-porn obsessed media and exposes what is lost in the news written by parachute journalists. Readers are invited to examine what fire can and does mean to them, what it means for us to reimagine the world, to prepare for the worst, and to examine flames through different lenses. Contributors include Manjula Martin, Hiya Swanhuyser, Zeke Lunder, Lasara Firefox Allen, Margo Robbins, Kailea Frederick, Redbird Willie, and more.
When warm temperatures, low humidity, and strong winds combine they produce an increased risk of fire danger called a "red flag warning"—a common event in Northern California. Through essays and interviews, Red Flag Warning sheds light on how wildfire impacts our communities and offers wisdom on living with fire from Indigenous Californians, community organizers, mental health care workers, environmentalists, fire analysts, sustainable loggers, parents, and more.
The collection explores the ways these fires take root and impact rural and urban Northern California, it examines our relationships to place and community and to understand the importance of mutual aid, organizing, community care, land stewardship, and resilience. Red Flag Warning covers the stories not frequently found in the often disaster-porn obsessed media and exposes what is lost in the news written by parachute journalists. Readers are invited to examine what fire can and does mean to them, what it means for us to reimagine the world, to prepare for the worst, and to examine flames through different lenses. Contributors include Manjula Martin, Hiya Swanhuyser, Zeke Lunder, Lasara Firefox Allen, Margo Robbins, Kailea Frederick, Redbird Willie, and more.
- GenresNonfictionEssays
184 pages, Paperback
Published June 24, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
June 16, 2025
Red Flag Warning, edited by Dani Burlison and Margaret Elysia, is necessary reading in current times. This collection of essays covers a lot of ground for such a small amount of pages. I found all of the entries to be very well written and edited. The use of space in this book is quite efficient and appreciated.
Equal parts affecting and pragmatic, RFW manages to capture the horrors and desperation of wildfire while also understanding it as an inevitable and sometimes useful part of the landscape. I am in my 40s now and grew up in SoCal until I was about 9 years old. I remember back then the droughts, fires, and heat waves. Over these few decades since, it is frankly terrifying to see how much ecological disaster and collapse has accelerated. Now I watch the destruction from afar, gaining glimpses but no longer experiencing it the same way. The entries in this book bring the issue more front and center and grounded me more in the dire situations now plaguing fire prone areas.
The way some of the authors capture the experience of terror and loss has left me thinking about them for days. The book can be difficult at times for this reason, but not without purpose. We also learn the many ways that communities came together to solve problems that the state would not solve. We learn about love, resilience, and cooperation even when that alone at times is not enough to save us.
There are multiple entries discussing indigenous knowledge about controlled burning and other methods of living alongside fire. I liked that it did mention that all humans cause disruptions of the ecosystem, which burning can be part of in a negative way. The reason this stood out to me was that some writing about (and even by) indigenous people can be tokenizing- treating all indigenous folks as a single homogenous tribe of mythical entities living in pristine wilderness. We can acknowledge that humans have had diverse and disruptive effects on other species and environments in every location that we have traveled to. We can acknowledge that colonialism exponentially exacerbated these effects. We can note what we have learned over time and we can also take wisdom from the past. There were effective methods of preventing fire via controlled burning and combining that with the new limitations caused by the population levels and ecological collapse of today provides accessible solutions. Indigenous people have been instrumental in finding ways to preserve their own land and communities - both environmentally and culturally. They have also taught other people throughout the area how to preserve the wisdom of the past and apply it to the future. They do so with generosity and solidarity, despite so many being descendents of colonizers who led us to the catastrophic present in fire country.
The book also focuses on the myriad of people often left out of discussions around wildfire. Many of the stories we see on the news are about wealthy celebrities who have lost their third home in some affluent area of California. Many of the people most affected by wildfire are those of smaller rural low-income communities, indigenous people living on reservations, immigrants-especially undocumented folks, and people of other marginalized communities. There is also an entry on the fire fighters who are also prisoners, putting their lives on the line to protect these communities, only to find themselves unable to find employment when they are out due to unjust restrictions.
I like that they included an essay on the financial effects of fire. I didn't realize until I was reading it that we often don't have this sort of economic viewpoint in many leftist or mutual aid based texts because we understandably don't want to center capitalism. It was enlightening seeing someone sort out some of the statistics to create a wider view of the effects of disaster. For instance, I had never realized that state of emergency designations are often based on economic loss and other numbers, not relative to population. This means that smaller communities, even if the fires are far more dangerous and devastating in that location, will often not be labeled as in a state of emergency because there are not enough people there to meet some sort of criteria. This happens on top of the other oppressions facing these communities.
The only criticism I really have about this text is how discussions of other animals were treated. Some of the most horrific stories I've heard about these fires are of farmed animals who were left trapped, unable to escape, as the flames engulfed them alive or of already threatened wild animals being surrounded. The only real reference is to domesticated animals are as "livestock" and there are few things more capitalist than designating others as property. Other animals are unable to offer their stories and this book so they rely on us to have to tell them for them. Near the end there is mention of one community who offers a place for some people to take their animals. However the rescue networks for animals, both domesticated and through wildlife rehabilitation, are really important parts of this puzzle that I would have liked to be better represented and discussed. Mentioning animals as an afterthought without truly immersing them and discussion shows a lack of scope in terms of understanding some of the greatest contributors to climate change and those who are most affected by it outside of humans.
This was also posted to my storygraph and blog.
Equal parts affecting and pragmatic, RFW manages to capture the horrors and desperation of wildfire while also understanding it as an inevitable and sometimes useful part of the landscape. I am in my 40s now and grew up in SoCal until I was about 9 years old. I remember back then the droughts, fires, and heat waves. Over these few decades since, it is frankly terrifying to see how much ecological disaster and collapse has accelerated. Now I watch the destruction from afar, gaining glimpses but no longer experiencing it the same way. The entries in this book bring the issue more front and center and grounded me more in the dire situations now plaguing fire prone areas.
The way some of the authors capture the experience of terror and loss has left me thinking about them for days. The book can be difficult at times for this reason, but not without purpose. We also learn the many ways that communities came together to solve problems that the state would not solve. We learn about love, resilience, and cooperation even when that alone at times is not enough to save us.
There are multiple entries discussing indigenous knowledge about controlled burning and other methods of living alongside fire. I liked that it did mention that all humans cause disruptions of the ecosystem, which burning can be part of in a negative way. The reason this stood out to me was that some writing about (and even by) indigenous people can be tokenizing- treating all indigenous folks as a single homogenous tribe of mythical entities living in pristine wilderness. We can acknowledge that humans have had diverse and disruptive effects on other species and environments in every location that we have traveled to. We can acknowledge that colonialism exponentially exacerbated these effects. We can note what we have learned over time and we can also take wisdom from the past. There were effective methods of preventing fire via controlled burning and combining that with the new limitations caused by the population levels and ecological collapse of today provides accessible solutions. Indigenous people have been instrumental in finding ways to preserve their own land and communities - both environmentally and culturally. They have also taught other people throughout the area how to preserve the wisdom of the past and apply it to the future. They do so with generosity and solidarity, despite so many being descendents of colonizers who led us to the catastrophic present in fire country.
The book also focuses on the myriad of people often left out of discussions around wildfire. Many of the stories we see on the news are about wealthy celebrities who have lost their third home in some affluent area of California. Many of the people most affected by wildfire are those of smaller rural low-income communities, indigenous people living on reservations, immigrants-especially undocumented folks, and people of other marginalized communities. There is also an entry on the fire fighters who are also prisoners, putting their lives on the line to protect these communities, only to find themselves unable to find employment when they are out due to unjust restrictions.
I like that they included an essay on the financial effects of fire. I didn't realize until I was reading it that we often don't have this sort of economic viewpoint in many leftist or mutual aid based texts because we understandably don't want to center capitalism. It was enlightening seeing someone sort out some of the statistics to create a wider view of the effects of disaster. For instance, I had never realized that state of emergency designations are often based on economic loss and other numbers, not relative to population. This means that smaller communities, even if the fires are far more dangerous and devastating in that location, will often not be labeled as in a state of emergency because there are not enough people there to meet some sort of criteria. This happens on top of the other oppressions facing these communities.
The only criticism I really have about this text is how discussions of other animals were treated. Some of the most horrific stories I've heard about these fires are of farmed animals who were left trapped, unable to escape, as the flames engulfed them alive or of already threatened wild animals being surrounded. The only real reference is to domesticated animals are as "livestock" and there are few things more capitalist than designating others as property. Other animals are unable to offer their stories and this book so they rely on us to have to tell them for them. Near the end there is mention of one community who offers a place for some people to take their animals. However the rescue networks for animals, both domesticated and through wildlife rehabilitation, are really important parts of this puzzle that I would have liked to be better represented and discussed. Mentioning animals as an afterthought without truly immersing them and discussion shows a lack of scope in terms of understanding some of the greatest contributors to climate change and those who are most affected by it outside of humans.
This was also posted to my storygraph and blog.
November 20, 2025
A really intriguing and eye-opening collection of essays about how communities come together during and after wildfire. I didn't love every essay in this book, but I did like most of them and I learned a ton. After reading the intro I say with why I wanted to read this book in the first place. Why did I pick this one up? I grew up in Western Washington that is surrounded by forest. Growing up I don't really recall significant wildfires or smoke events. But in the past 10 years that has changed significantly. The experience of summer's transition into fall is now a fire season in WW. Towns across the region have burned down and we have had to sit inside for days to avoid the harmful AQI due to wildfire smoke. But, California has been dealing with this much longer and with much more sever wildfires. When I think of mega wildfires and towns wiped off the map, California comes first to mind. When I think about how, even if we made significant changes to our hyper consumerist capitalist society now, we would still have to deal with mega fires for years to come putting millions in danger. Not just people but plants and animals as well. So I wanted to read this because we all need to prepare for the real possibility that we could be and will eventually be in a climate disaster situation.
It is really powerful how people show up for each other. A common theme throughout this book was that no matter who a person was and what differences they carry in non-disaster times, they are coming together to support each other during and after a climate disaster. Whoever is able to, steps up with the skills they recognize they have, sometimes learning new ones in the process, to care for their neighbors. I liked that a lot of essays were pretty detailed in what was done and how. Like collecting and distributing mutual aid funds, making meals for each other, lending property for people to camp on, creating temporary communities on their property, learning and administering first-aid, making fire lines, offering mental health services, etc. In climate disasters the self is left behind, and the community is realized and practiced.
There is a lot to learn here and I highly recommend the book if you want to more understand how mutual aid can look during a disaster, how to prep your community for an eventual disaster, and to further think upon what skills you might have to offer. This isn't just relevant for wildfires though it is a focus of the book, but it is highly relevant to all climate disasters and the actions in here are easily adaptable.
Thank you to AK Press for a gifted copy of this book.
It is really powerful how people show up for each other. A common theme throughout this book was that no matter who a person was and what differences they carry in non-disaster times, they are coming together to support each other during and after a climate disaster. Whoever is able to, steps up with the skills they recognize they have, sometimes learning new ones in the process, to care for their neighbors. I liked that a lot of essays were pretty detailed in what was done and how. Like collecting and distributing mutual aid funds, making meals for each other, lending property for people to camp on, creating temporary communities on their property, learning and administering first-aid, making fire lines, offering mental health services, etc. In climate disasters the self is left behind, and the community is realized and practiced.
There is a lot to learn here and I highly recommend the book if you want to more understand how mutual aid can look during a disaster, how to prep your community for an eventual disaster, and to further think upon what skills you might have to offer. This isn't just relevant for wildfires though it is a focus of the book, but it is highly relevant to all climate disasters and the actions in here are easily adaptable.
Thank you to AK Press for a gifted copy of this book.
October 25, 2025
Many fire memoirs suffer from a couple of common limitations. Typically, they're written by a single author with a fairly individualized set of experiences... and even when a collected volume, they lean heavily into the idiosyncratic fire tales. And, they often follow a fairly common narrative arc of normalcy, fire shock, response/evacuation, loss, rebuilding, and finding silver linings. I'm not trying to suggest that these aren't worth documenting or worthy stories: they are, and the fact that these idiosyncratic and situated stories often unearth common themes (e.g., shared points of frustration with authorities, shared ways of processing the pain and suffering, etc) makes them helpful resources for those who want to better understand the experiences of those who go through fire.
But, the contrast with these typical narratives is what makes "Red Flag Warning" so striking and valuable as a resource. The varied perspectives bring a richness to the volume; the common lean towards critical reflection and sociopolitical awareness makes for a more insightful and incisive volume than most.
This critical turn is what I value the most in this book. As the editors write, "Fire invites us to reimagine the structures and systems we have been living inside and, when necessary, to dismantle them" (p. 7). Throughout the volume, we encounter fire not just as a biotic or ecological phenomenon, and not just as the manifestation of human influence through our institutions and decisions, but also as a reflection of the broader socioeconomic systems (e.g., capitalism, colonialism, modernity, etc) that reveal themselves in such plagues and crises. As one chapter notes from a workshop announcement,
Another example of such insight is in the chapter on "The Community of Evacuation" by Margaret Elysia Garcia. Not only does the chapter overall offer a window into the evacuation experiences, but the calling out of external punditry over the future of evacuees is particular apt. "Our fires only make the news," she writes, "if the hazardous AQI and orange apocalyptic sky make it to San Francisco or Sacramento. We are news only when the forces of our destruction become a hinderance to the daily lives of city dwellers" (p. 36).
There are a bunch of great chapters in here. To call attention to only just a few, "The UndocuFund" by Beatrice Camacho is a fascinating look into aid for a particularly vulnerable community that is often overlooked. Dany Bulison's chapter on incarcerated firefighters is another poignent insight, especially for those outside of the US/California context. And "Triptych in Smoke" is a wonderful exploration of the experience of dual hazards of viral transmission and COVID in this moment of calamity. But, there are many more fantastic chapters, and I'd simply encourage you to read them all.
What makes this book so valuable, in my mind, is that fire is used to bring clarity to bigger themes and questions. Instead of seeing fire as an isolated event and the story in and of itself, as so many fire memoirs do, the whole volume works to position fire in its broader societal context, from indigenous fire use to modernity's disaster capitalism. This insight and big picture - while remaining grounded in the local and specific - makes for a fantastic book.
And, it also enriches the conclusion compared to many memoirs. Instead of the typical turn to silver linings, the trenchant and critical analysis leads to a deeper mission of righting these systems. As the editors conclude in the afterward,
But, the contrast with these typical narratives is what makes "Red Flag Warning" so striking and valuable as a resource. The varied perspectives bring a richness to the volume; the common lean towards critical reflection and sociopolitical awareness makes for a more insightful and incisive volume than most.
This critical turn is what I value the most in this book. As the editors write, "Fire invites us to reimagine the structures and systems we have been living inside and, when necessary, to dismantle them" (p. 7). Throughout the volume, we encounter fire not just as a biotic or ecological phenomenon, and not just as the manifestation of human influence through our institutions and decisions, but also as a reflection of the broader socioeconomic systems (e.g., capitalism, colonialism, modernity, etc) that reveal themselves in such plagues and crises. As one chapter notes from a workshop announcement,
We live in the disasters and colonization and capitalism every day, and its these systematic disasters we spend our time responding to after the embers have gone cold or the waters clear... Earth's natural cycles aren't the problem. The disaster is the way institutions capitalize from and create inequality. It's the power structure that holds a monopoly on aid, but refuses to distribute it to those in most dire need. (p. 10)
Another example of such insight is in the chapter on "The Community of Evacuation" by Margaret Elysia Garcia. Not only does the chapter overall offer a window into the evacuation experiences, but the calling out of external punditry over the future of evacuees is particular apt. "Our fires only make the news," she writes, "if the hazardous AQI and orange apocalyptic sky make it to San Francisco or Sacramento. We are news only when the forces of our destruction become a hinderance to the daily lives of city dwellers" (p. 36).
There are a bunch of great chapters in here. To call attention to only just a few, "The UndocuFund" by Beatrice Camacho is a fascinating look into aid for a particularly vulnerable community that is often overlooked. Dany Bulison's chapter on incarcerated firefighters is another poignent insight, especially for those outside of the US/California context. And "Triptych in Smoke" is a wonderful exploration of the experience of dual hazards of viral transmission and COVID in this moment of calamity. But, there are many more fantastic chapters, and I'd simply encourage you to read them all.
What makes this book so valuable, in my mind, is that fire is used to bring clarity to bigger themes and questions. Instead of seeing fire as an isolated event and the story in and of itself, as so many fire memoirs do, the whole volume works to position fire in its broader societal context, from indigenous fire use to modernity's disaster capitalism. This insight and big picture - while remaining grounded in the local and specific - makes for a fantastic book.
And, it also enriches the conclusion compared to many memoirs. Instead of the typical turn to silver linings, the trenchant and critical analysis leads to a deeper mission of righting these systems. As the editors conclude in the afterward,
It is so easy to be all-consumed by the rage and heartbreak, to lose sight of the fact that every time a climate catastrophe hits, we have an opportunity to build the world we all deserve to live in... I do believe that we indeed owe it to each other to survive these times. Or at least to try. Both Margaret and I hope the stories in this book have offered routes toward that possibility of creating a better world. (p. 166)
July 1, 2025
Rating: 4* of five
The Publisher Says: Two survivors of California fires compile a guide for living physically, mentally, and emotionally amid ecological destruction.
When warm temperatures, low humidity, and strong winds combine they produce an increased risk of fire danger called a "red flag warning"—a common event in Northern California. Through essays and interviews, Red Flag Warning sheds light on how wildfire impacts our communities and offers wisdom on living with fire from Indigenous Californians, community organizers, mental health care workers, environmentalists, fire analysts, sustainable loggers, parents, and more.
The collection explores the ways these fires take root and impact rural and urban Northern California, it examines our relationships to place and community and to understand the importance of mutual aid, organizing, community care, land stewardship, and resilience. Red Flag Warning covers the stories not frequently found in the often disaster-porn obsessed media and exposes what is lost in the news written by parachute journalists. Readers are invited to examine what fire can and does mean to them, what it means for us to reimagine the world, to prepare for the worst, and to examine flames through different lenses. Contributors include Manjula Martin, Hiya Swanhuyser, Zeke Lunder, Lasara Firefox Allen, Margo Robbins, Kailea Frederick, Redbird Willie, and more.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: "Victims of climate disaster" is a very effective distancing and Othering way to look at the results of humanity's unbridled greed. It puts the reader, or viewer, outside the horrors enacted for their titillated pity.
This anthology of essays is not about that. It is a series of accounts from the people in the (sometimes literal) trenches; these are the stories that your news source draws from to present its gods'-eye view and enable thereby your hunger for information without the emotional investment of intimacy.
Tear off the bandage, look at the real wound.
We're pretty complacent, us readers. We eagerly feed our heads information. It's the miracle, and I do not use the term lightly, of the internet age. We sit on an IMMENSE information structure, one designed ad hoc. We get to edit what from it we consume, how we consume it...we never need to examine the act of consumption itself. When one consumes a thing it must be processed, broken into needed and not-needed parts, then winnowed to remove the not-needed bits.
Our minds perform this function automatically (thanks to many thousands of hours' training), just like our guts do with sustenance. The main difference is we can train our brains to do different things more readily than our guts. What we put into them is in both cases the determining factor of what we get out.
Consuming more "disaster porn" reportage is not informing you of anything more than some selectively presented bits of fact in a heavy sauce of context, aka distortion. It's not usually done maliciously or with the intent to misinform you, but that is always, inevitably, the effect of choosing an "angle" to report.
This very short anthology, under two hundred pages, is an excellent way to jailbreak your information stream with stories of how people really there, with property at risk and friends/lovers/neighbors to care for, managed the balancing act of keeping themselves safe while taking needed action. What did they lose? Who did they lose? How does the world look to them now? What does taking personal action look like in an overwhelming, immense, uncontrollable apocalypse?
More news coverage will only create a seriously unhelpful sense of remove from what is happening to us. It is not just happening around us. In the voices of those who actually faced this unimaginable horror and still used their learned empathetic response to do something selfless, the essays here give us a gift of example to use and to praise. Not every essay is perfectly polished, or equally carefully thought out; but that's the nature of this format, and they all add their bit to the gestalt: Do something. Help. Serve a greater purpose.
Learn and take inspiration from these stories of what ordinary people, acting on their empathetic promptings, did (and can do) for themselves and each other.
The Publisher Says: Two survivors of California fires compile a guide for living physically, mentally, and emotionally amid ecological destruction.
When warm temperatures, low humidity, and strong winds combine they produce an increased risk of fire danger called a "red flag warning"—a common event in Northern California. Through essays and interviews, Red Flag Warning sheds light on how wildfire impacts our communities and offers wisdom on living with fire from Indigenous Californians, community organizers, mental health care workers, environmentalists, fire analysts, sustainable loggers, parents, and more.
The collection explores the ways these fires take root and impact rural and urban Northern California, it examines our relationships to place and community and to understand the importance of mutual aid, organizing, community care, land stewardship, and resilience. Red Flag Warning covers the stories not frequently found in the often disaster-porn obsessed media and exposes what is lost in the news written by parachute journalists. Readers are invited to examine what fire can and does mean to them, what it means for us to reimagine the world, to prepare for the worst, and to examine flames through different lenses. Contributors include Manjula Martin, Hiya Swanhuyser, Zeke Lunder, Lasara Firefox Allen, Margo Robbins, Kailea Frederick, Redbird Willie, and more.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: "Victims of climate disaster" is a very effective distancing and Othering way to look at the results of humanity's unbridled greed. It puts the reader, or viewer, outside the horrors enacted for their titillated pity.
This anthology of essays is not about that. It is a series of accounts from the people in the (sometimes literal) trenches; these are the stories that your news source draws from to present its gods'-eye view and enable thereby your hunger for information without the emotional investment of intimacy.
Tear off the bandage, look at the real wound.
We're pretty complacent, us readers. We eagerly feed our heads information. It's the miracle, and I do not use the term lightly, of the internet age. We sit on an IMMENSE information structure, one designed ad hoc. We get to edit what from it we consume, how we consume it...we never need to examine the act of consumption itself. When one consumes a thing it must be processed, broken into needed and not-needed parts, then winnowed to remove the not-needed bits.
Our minds perform this function automatically (thanks to many thousands of hours' training), just like our guts do with sustenance. The main difference is we can train our brains to do different things more readily than our guts. What we put into them is in both cases the determining factor of what we get out.
Consuming more "disaster porn" reportage is not informing you of anything more than some selectively presented bits of fact in a heavy sauce of context, aka distortion. It's not usually done maliciously or with the intent to misinform you, but that is always, inevitably, the effect of choosing an "angle" to report.
This very short anthology, under two hundred pages, is an excellent way to jailbreak your information stream with stories of how people really there, with property at risk and friends/lovers/neighbors to care for, managed the balancing act of keeping themselves safe while taking needed action. What did they lose? Who did they lose? How does the world look to them now? What does taking personal action look like in an overwhelming, immense, uncontrollable apocalypse?
More news coverage will only create a seriously unhelpful sense of remove from what is happening to us. It is not just happening around us. In the voices of those who actually faced this unimaginable horror and still used their learned empathetic response to do something selfless, the essays here give us a gift of example to use and to praise. Not every essay is perfectly polished, or equally carefully thought out; but that's the nature of this format, and they all add their bit to the gestalt: Do something. Help. Serve a greater purpose.
Learn and take inspiration from these stories of what ordinary people, acting on their empathetic promptings, did (and can do) for themselves and each other.
March 6, 2025
I received a review copy of the essay anthology Red Flag Warning from Edelweiss, a website that distributes books to reviewers in advance of publication.
Red Flag Warning deals with the ongoing tragedy of California wildfires. People losing their homes to the fires and having to evacuate is the most important news story for Californians. Everyone is wondering if their area will be the next to burn.
I was particularly interested in reading about incarcerated firefighters. Incarcerated firefighters are one third of California's firefighting force. They earn $2-$5 per day which becomes $1-$2 per hour while they are fighting an active fire.
I found a chart of The Top 20 Most Destructive California Wildfires. I note that the Eaton and Palisades wildfires,which are listed as the second and third most destructive, were 2025 wildfires. They are 100% contained, but their causes are still under investigation.
This book is very significant and had a powerful impact on me. I'm giving it a grade of A +.
For my complete review see https://shomeretmasked.blogspot.com/2...
Red Flag Warning deals with the ongoing tragedy of California wildfires. People losing their homes to the fires and having to evacuate is the most important news story for Californians. Everyone is wondering if their area will be the next to burn.
I was particularly interested in reading about incarcerated firefighters. Incarcerated firefighters are one third of California's firefighting force. They earn $2-$5 per day which becomes $1-$2 per hour while they are fighting an active fire.
I found a chart of The Top 20 Most Destructive California Wildfires. I note that the Eaton and Palisades wildfires,which are listed as the second and third most destructive, were 2025 wildfires. They are 100% contained, but their causes are still under investigation.
This book is very significant and had a powerful impact on me. I'm giving it a grade of A +.
For my complete review see https://shomeretmasked.blogspot.com/2...
July 9, 2025
Wonderful book about an obviously not wonderful topic, wildfires in California. While I've so far been fortunate where I am north of SF to not have to evacuate I did experience very poor air quality and smoke from a couple of the Sonoma County fires in recent years. Also had several coworkers who did have to evacuate.
The essays in this book are a wide mix of stories of evacuations, mutual aid, basic survival, resilience, rebuilding, cultural burning, and reflections on how fire is managed or not managed here in CA.
I was familiar with about half of the authors including Margo Robbins (Yurok Tribe in northern CA), Manjula Martin (author of recent highly rated book The Last Fire Season), Redbird Willie (indigenous teacher, artist and author), Zeke Lunder (Chico wildfire analyst, website The Lookout, great videos and commentary). Other authors I will be following!
The essays in this book are a wide mix of stories of evacuations, mutual aid, basic survival, resilience, rebuilding, cultural burning, and reflections on how fire is managed or not managed here in CA.
I was familiar with about half of the authors including Margo Robbins (Yurok Tribe in northern CA), Manjula Martin (author of recent highly rated book The Last Fire Season), Redbird Willie (indigenous teacher, artist and author), Zeke Lunder (Chico wildfire analyst, website The Lookout, great videos and commentary). Other authors I will be following!
December 25, 2025
The theme of this book is mutual aid. That is, the community has the wisdom and ability to render aid before the traditional government agencies arrive. The book is an anthology of essays and reportage on this them. The essays include a story of mountain people helping themselves during a fire disaster, many days before outside help could reach them. Another story is how a former convict firefighter is helping former convict firefighters to get professional careers with fire departments. Two essays are about indigenous methods of living with fire and restoring the land through prescribed burns.
I do present a trigger warning. There are some frank descriptions of smoke, fire and fire damage.
I do present a trigger warning. There are some frank descriptions of smoke, fire and fire damage.
September 4, 2025
This was such a fascinating read. As a person born and raised in California just northwest of fire country, it felt like I could see the flames that scarred so much beautiful land and uprooted so many people's lives in recent years. This series of essays adds to the discussion of how we face the future of wildfires in a warming world. I enjoyed the topics on grassroots mutual-aid and Indigenous fire practices the most. One of the essays speaks to how we need to stop focusing on "going back to normal" as it relates to fighting climate change, because it was that "normal" that got us here in the first place.
September 24, 2025
A surprisingly fab collection of essays and interviews about surviving fires, incarcerated firefighters, indigenous fire practices, and permaculture forestry which pairs well with “The Great Displacement” by Jake Bittle and “The Mushroom At The End of the World” by Anna Tsing. It was written before the Eaton and Palisades fires but does talk about them in the afterward. Very loosely about mutual aid, but the themes of communal management are still present throughout. 4/5 only because it could have been more involved and lengthy, and the introduction agrees.
July 8, 2025
A powerful collection of essays about the many ways that communities take care of each other in the wake of wildfires in Northern California, from Indigenous prescribed burns to mental health support for wildfire survivors to a fund that supports undocumented people. This is exactly the kind of book we need more of as climate chaos intensifies - it's full of concrete examples of how regular people can help each other survive this era of catastrophe.
August 11, 2025
This book was okay, but I didn't get much anarchism from it.
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