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When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World
A hotshot firefighter’s gripping firsthand account of a record-setting fire season
Eighteen of California’s largest wildfires on record have burned in the past two decades. Scientists recently invented the term “megafire” to describe wildfires that behave in ways that would have been nearly impossible just a generation ago, burning through winter, exploding in the night, and devastating landscapes historically impervious to incendiary destruction.
In When It All Burns, wildland firefighter and anthropologist Jordan Thomas recounts a single, brutal six-month fire season with the Los Padres Hotshots—the special forces of America’s firefighters. Being a hotshot is among the most difficult jobs on earth. Thomas viscerally renders his crew’s attempts to battle flames that are often too destructive to contain. He uncovers the hidden cultural history of megafires, revealing how humanity’s symbiotic relationship with wildfire became a war—and what can be done to change it back.
Thomas weaves ecology and the history of Indigenous peoples' oppression, federal forestry, and the growth of the fire industrial complex into a riveting narrative about a new phase in the climate crisis. It's an immersive story of community in the most perilous of circumstances, told with humor, humility, and affection.
* This audiobook edition includes a downloadable PDF containing a map of the wildfires fought by Los Padres Hotshot Crew in California in 2001.
PLEASE When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
Eighteen of California’s largest wildfires on record have burned in the past two decades. Scientists recently invented the term “megafire” to describe wildfires that behave in ways that would have been nearly impossible just a generation ago, burning through winter, exploding in the night, and devastating landscapes historically impervious to incendiary destruction.
In When It All Burns, wildland firefighter and anthropologist Jordan Thomas recounts a single, brutal six-month fire season with the Los Padres Hotshots—the special forces of America’s firefighters. Being a hotshot is among the most difficult jobs on earth. Thomas viscerally renders his crew’s attempts to battle flames that are often too destructive to contain. He uncovers the hidden cultural history of megafires, revealing how humanity’s symbiotic relationship with wildfire became a war—and what can be done to change it back.
Thomas weaves ecology and the history of Indigenous peoples' oppression, federal forestry, and the growth of the fire industrial complex into a riveting narrative about a new phase in the climate crisis. It's an immersive story of community in the most perilous of circumstances, told with humor, humility, and affection.
* This audiobook edition includes a downloadable PDF containing a map of the wildfires fought by Los Padres Hotshot Crew in California in 2001.
PLEASE When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
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Published May 27, 2025
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September 8, 2025
“By making an enemy of fire, we’d made an enemy of the land.”
Preamble:
--I finished this book under a blood-red sun, as wildfire smoke descended on the Pacific Northwest. The worse the world gets, the better my readings get, as all my priority topics become that much more dire.
--While Global North capitalism/settler colonialism dream of returning to “normal”, wildfire smoke reaching rich cities across continents is one alarm that cannot be completely silenced. I’m reminded of Juilan Assange describing human’s ability to adapt as our best and worst feature: best, when we overcome great hardships; worst, when we tolerate great abuses.
--An anthropologist detailing his experience as an elite wildland firefighter (Los Padres Hotshot crew)? I have high standards for memoirs/biographies, so it takes a special one to crack the top tier (ex. The Scalpel, the Sword: The Story of Dr. Norman Bethune).
Highlights:
1) Indigenous Fire Stewardship:
--Every time I hear the cynical notion that humans are a “virus” destined to destroy “nature”, I am reminded of colonialism/capitalism’s necessary illusions. Alternatives must be censored.
--This book skips the fascinating anthropology of politics (decision-making) and how this affects class/gender/environmental relations (hunting gathering vs. agriculture):
-Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior
-Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding
-Affluence Without Abundance: The Disappearing World of the Bushmen
--This book starts with indigenous societies throughout the world modifying their environment as stewards, rather than some pristine “nature” free of human interference. Fire has been a conveniently-missing evidence for Western scholarship (citing Omer C. Stewart’s Forgotten Fires: Native Americans and the Transient Wilderness, apparently written in 1957 but only published in 2002):
i) Controlled burning (stimulating regeneration of soil/germination of seeds/diversify species etc.) has long been a tool to steward biodiversity (mosaic of ecosystems; diversity builds resilience against imbalances; thus, creating fire-dependent ecologies)
ii) Process of cultural burning weaves socioecological relationships (interconnections between humans/environment, between humans i.e. community; responsibility for future generations) into cultural values.
…Also see: The Earth's Blanket: Traditional Teachings for Sustainable Living; it’s important to center the growing indigenous scholarship trying to decolonize academia (ex. Iwigara: The Kinship of Plants and People: American Indian Ethnobotanical Traditions and Science).
2) Capitalist Commodification and Fire Suppression:
--The actual virus is colonialism/capitalism’s endless commodification/accumulation, another fascinating story that requires a deeper dive:
-Debt: The First 5,000 Years
-Perilous Passage: Mankind and the Global Ascendancy of Capital
--This book still provides a great intro: colonialism/capitalism’s need for cheap labour (commodification of humans) and thus its criminalization of indigenous fires to destroy alternative ways of life and enforce dependency.
--Furthermore, the book makes the crucial connection with Europe’s domestic colonization (enclosures), where Europe’s own rural masses (who had their own indigenous relations with the land, including use of fire) were also criminalized/dispossessed to enforce dependency on wage labour (key input to the rising capitalism’s “dark, Satanic mills”). Elites like Malthus wanted to take the leisure of the masses and convert it to toil for private profits.
…I try to emphasize this connection to those who struggle to relate to the indigenous “other” (also see: Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation). I’m reminded of MLK Jr.:
…Such viral commodification of nature does raise contradictions. The book focuses on the conservation movement (symbolized by president Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt), which wanted to create a new moral imperative to regulate endless commodification. However, they were still biased by settler colonialism displacing indigenous peoples and assuming pristine “nature”.
…Eventually, this regulation via the US Forest Service (under the Department of Agriculture; hint: commodification) became financially captured by the logging industry. Total fire suppression was implemented. Forests were converted to monocrop commodities: trees of the same age/species, with increased density (hint: increased fuel). All to maximize profits. Diverse forest ecologies became a tinderbox.
--As this is the US, everything is tied to war. Fire suppression was a priority in WWII to protect timber reserves. With the end of the Vietnam war, the arms industry sold explosives to the Forest Service: “instead of dropping the hotshots [wildland firefighters] in a meadow, they would bomb a hilltop and land in the crater” (can you get more American?!). Monsanto repackaged the infamous Agent Orange and sold it to the Forest Service as a herbicide: “Military veterans who joined Linane’s crew had the peculiar experience of watching familiar airplanes shower California’s mountains with the same biochemical weapons they had used to root out Viet Cong fighters.” (OK, you can get more American).
--The book skips over the decline of Industrial capitalism and rise of Finance capitalism, another fascinating story: The Global Minotaur: America, the True Origins of the Financial Crisis and the Future of the World Economy
…The book jumps to the effects: rise of privatization (The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism); this was paired with climate denialism (Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming) which later became climate delayism (The Climate Book: The Facts and the Solutions).
--The climate crisis ignited capitalism/colonization’s tinderbox, resulting in the new normal of uncontrolled fires that lack the regenerative effects of indigenous fires and further escalate the climate/ecological crises :
…see comments below for rest of the review…
Preamble:
--I finished this book under a blood-red sun, as wildfire smoke descended on the Pacific Northwest. The worse the world gets, the better my readings get, as all my priority topics become that much more dire.
--While Global North capitalism/settler colonialism dream of returning to “normal”, wildfire smoke reaching rich cities across continents is one alarm that cannot be completely silenced. I’m reminded of Juilan Assange describing human’s ability to adapt as our best and worst feature: best, when we overcome great hardships; worst, when we tolerate great abuses.
--An anthropologist detailing his experience as an elite wildland firefighter (Los Padres Hotshot crew)? I have high standards for memoirs/biographies, so it takes a special one to crack the top tier (ex. The Scalpel, the Sword: The Story of Dr. Norman Bethune).
Highlights:
1) Indigenous Fire Stewardship:
--Every time I hear the cynical notion that humans are a “virus” destined to destroy “nature”, I am reminded of colonialism/capitalism’s necessary illusions. Alternatives must be censored.
--This book skips the fascinating anthropology of politics (decision-making) and how this affects class/gender/environmental relations (hunting gathering vs. agriculture):
-Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior
-Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding
-Affluence Without Abundance: The Disappearing World of the Bushmen
--This book starts with indigenous societies throughout the world modifying their environment as stewards, rather than some pristine “nature” free of human interference. Fire has been a conveniently-missing evidence for Western scholarship (citing Omer C. Stewart’s Forgotten Fires: Native Americans and the Transient Wilderness, apparently written in 1957 but only published in 2002):
i) Controlled burning (stimulating regeneration of soil/germination of seeds/diversify species etc.) has long been a tool to steward biodiversity (mosaic of ecosystems; diversity builds resilience against imbalances; thus, creating fire-dependent ecologies)
ii) Process of cultural burning weaves socioecological relationships (interconnections between humans/environment, between humans i.e. community; responsibility for future generations) into cultural values.
…Also see: The Earth's Blanket: Traditional Teachings for Sustainable Living; it’s important to center the growing indigenous scholarship trying to decolonize academia (ex. Iwigara: The Kinship of Plants and People: American Indian Ethnobotanical Traditions and Science).
2) Capitalist Commodification and Fire Suppression:
--The actual virus is colonialism/capitalism’s endless commodification/accumulation, another fascinating story that requires a deeper dive:
-Debt: The First 5,000 Years
-Perilous Passage: Mankind and the Global Ascendancy of Capital
--This book still provides a great intro: colonialism/capitalism’s need for cheap labour (commodification of humans) and thus its criminalization of indigenous fires to destroy alternative ways of life and enforce dependency.
--Furthermore, the book makes the crucial connection with Europe’s domestic colonization (enclosures), where Europe’s own rural masses (who had their own indigenous relations with the land, including use of fire) were also criminalized/dispossessed to enforce dependency on wage labour (key input to the rising capitalism’s “dark, Satanic mills”). Elites like Malthus wanted to take the leisure of the masses and convert it to toil for private profits.
…I try to emphasize this connection to those who struggle to relate to the indigenous “other” (also see: Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation). I’m reminded of MLK Jr.:
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.--Settler-colonial profit-seeking manufactured a moral imperative to tame nature. Nature only has “value” (economic value) once it’s privatized/sold (exchange-value; commodification of nature). For forests, it’s timber. Fire suppression protected these commodities.
…Such viral commodification of nature does raise contradictions. The book focuses on the conservation movement (symbolized by president Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt), which wanted to create a new moral imperative to regulate endless commodification. However, they were still biased by settler colonialism displacing indigenous peoples and assuming pristine “nature”.
…Eventually, this regulation via the US Forest Service (under the Department of Agriculture; hint: commodification) became financially captured by the logging industry. Total fire suppression was implemented. Forests were converted to monocrop commodities: trees of the same age/species, with increased density (hint: increased fuel). All to maximize profits. Diverse forest ecologies became a tinderbox.
--As this is the US, everything is tied to war. Fire suppression was a priority in WWII to protect timber reserves. With the end of the Vietnam war, the arms industry sold explosives to the Forest Service: “instead of dropping the hotshots [wildland firefighters] in a meadow, they would bomb a hilltop and land in the crater” (can you get more American?!). Monsanto repackaged the infamous Agent Orange and sold it to the Forest Service as a herbicide: “Military veterans who joined Linane’s crew had the peculiar experience of watching familiar airplanes shower California’s mountains with the same biochemical weapons they had used to root out Viet Cong fighters.” (OK, you can get more American).
--The book skips over the decline of Industrial capitalism and rise of Finance capitalism, another fascinating story: The Global Minotaur: America, the True Origins of the Financial Crisis and the Future of the World Economy
…The book jumps to the effects: rise of privatization (The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism); this was paired with climate denialism (Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming) which later became climate delayism (The Climate Book: The Facts and the Solutions).
--The climate crisis ignited capitalism/colonization’s tinderbox, resulting in the new normal of uncontrolled fires that lack the regenerative effects of indigenous fires and further escalate the climate/ecological crises :
In the past two decades, wildfires have been doing things not even computer models can predict, environmental events that have scientists racking their brains for appropriately dystopian terminology: firenadoes, firestorms, gigafires, megafires. Scientists recently invented the term “megafire” to describe wildfires that behave in ways that would have been impossible just a generation ago, burning through winter, exploding in the night, and devastating landscapes historically impervious to incendiary destruction—like the sequoia groves of California. Sequoias are among the oldest organisms in existence, with fire-resistant bark several feet thick and crowns that can recover when 90 percent is scorched. They even rely on fire to reproduce, as flames crack their cones so seedlings can germinate. Now, the same ecological force they once depended upon is pushing them toward extinction.…Thus, the curious position of today’s wildland firefights: fire suppression has helped create the tinderbox, but we cannot let the tinderbox burn out of control.
Sequoias’ lives are monuments of deep time. Their death would signify something else. If we could not hold this ridge against the megafire, the sequoias would become the largest torches on earth, carrying flames higher than the Statue of Liberty. After three thousand years of life, they would become charred monuments to a passing era, symbols of a violent future.
…see comments below for rest of the review…
October 31, 2025
An incredibly complete look at wildfire - through history, politics, labor, indigenous sciences, and the cultures of what has become normal in our burning world. From an incredibly talented writer and story teller, I’m excited to see this book continuously spread across everyone’s reading list.
May 27, 2025
By some measures, being a hotshot is among the most difficult jobs on earth. Hotshots don't just mountaineer; they mountaineer with chainsaws, and they do so in thick smoke, often in unprecedented heat, along the edges of the most extreme conflagrations in recorded history. In the mountains of California's Sierra Nevada range, hotshots sometimes train alongside Olympic athletes because their jobs require an equivalent level of tactical athleticism. They need to be able to hike for hours, cut line for miles, command helicopters and airplanes from their radios on the ground, and maintain a constant awareness of all the shifting conditions that could change the fire's spread. Their lives depend on these abilities. (loc. 364*)
In another life, I want to be a wildland firefighter. Not necessarily a hotshot or a smokejumper, and not this life—not when I'm busy doing other things and my knees are already too old to cooperate with me much of the time and I already know far too much about how little the US government thinks of the people doing this difficult, often precise, dangerous work. (Maybe in other countries it is better—quick, where are the wildland firefighting memoirs from Europe, Asia, Oceania?) But Thomas was a wildland firefighter, in this lifetime. A hotshot and also an academic, he was studying anthropology when he got interested in fire—fire, and firefighting, and the ways Native Americans used fire to manage the land, and the ways the colonizers weaponized that fire by criminalizing it, positioning nature as an adversary, creating conditions in which more and more flammable material built up, and humans could manage it less and less.
Thomas blends memoir with research here. The memoir part describes his season on a hotshot crew in one of the hottest years on record, one in which he and the rest of the crew battled blazes that would have been unimaginable to all but tuned-in scientists even fifty years ago. Thomas was the new guy on the crew—not new to wildland firefighting but new to being a hotshot (highly trained, the technicians of wildland firefighting), and struggling to learn his role as a sawyer and keep up and simply conceive of the scale of what they were doing. The research part of things digs deep into history and anthropology, from massacres of Native Americans to the continued devastation inflicted by loggers and politicians.
It's a hard read but a gripping one. I've read a lot of firefighting memoir (again: in another life...), so I was already familiar with a lot of the wtf moments (did you know that wildland firefighters are typically seasonal employees working on low pay and no benefits—meaning, crucially, no insurance if they're injured on the job? I did, but it makes me mad every time I read about it), but there's always something new to learn (did you know that a lot of fire retardant dumps are done—at great expense—to quell public outcry of "where are the planes?" rather than because it will actually be useful where it is being dumped? I did not!).
I've you've been thinking at all about fires and climate change recently, or fires and history, or climate change and history, this is a good one—one of the better books about fire that I've read. It slows down a little at the end (as expected, Thomas did not pursue a longer career as a hotshot), but it's full of fascinating, if often depressing, context and detail.
Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.
*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.
In another life, I want to be a wildland firefighter. Not necessarily a hotshot or a smokejumper, and not this life—not when I'm busy doing other things and my knees are already too old to cooperate with me much of the time and I already know far too much about how little the US government thinks of the people doing this difficult, often precise, dangerous work. (Maybe in other countries it is better—quick, where are the wildland firefighting memoirs from Europe, Asia, Oceania?) But Thomas was a wildland firefighter, in this lifetime. A hotshot and also an academic, he was studying anthropology when he got interested in fire—fire, and firefighting, and the ways Native Americans used fire to manage the land, and the ways the colonizers weaponized that fire by criminalizing it, positioning nature as an adversary, creating conditions in which more and more flammable material built up, and humans could manage it less and less.
Thomas blends memoir with research here. The memoir part describes his season on a hotshot crew in one of the hottest years on record, one in which he and the rest of the crew battled blazes that would have been unimaginable to all but tuned-in scientists even fifty years ago. Thomas was the new guy on the crew—not new to wildland firefighting but new to being a hotshot (highly trained, the technicians of wildland firefighting), and struggling to learn his role as a sawyer and keep up and simply conceive of the scale of what they were doing. The research part of things digs deep into history and anthropology, from massacres of Native Americans to the continued devastation inflicted by loggers and politicians.
It's a hard read but a gripping one. I've read a lot of firefighting memoir (again: in another life...), so I was already familiar with a lot of the wtf moments (did you know that wildland firefighters are typically seasonal employees working on low pay and no benefits—meaning, crucially, no insurance if they're injured on the job? I did, but it makes me mad every time I read about it), but there's always something new to learn (did you know that a lot of fire retardant dumps are done—at great expense—to quell public outcry of "where are the planes?" rather than because it will actually be useful where it is being dumped? I did not!).
I've you've been thinking at all about fires and climate change recently, or fires and history, or climate change and history, this is a good one—one of the better books about fire that I've read. It slows down a little at the end (as expected, Thomas did not pursue a longer career as a hotshot), but it's full of fascinating, if often depressing, context and detail.
Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.
*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.
October 4, 2025
I learned a lot in this book and appreciated how he wove history into the story of wildfires. Also this is a book about worker's rights, capitalism, health care, climate change, colonialism, and I appreciated that a lot. I wish there had been more interrogation of gender and race. I also wish it was tonally a little more engaging.
May 9, 2025
While working on a graduate degree Jordan Thomas takes a break from research to understand fire better and joins the hotshots and battles wildfires for a season. He didn't put it this way, others and himself questioned why he wanted to join this elite firefighting team. One of his explanations was simply he needed money. But there are a ton of ways to earn money. Thomas was also interested in fire and wanted to understand it more thoroughly, and why not experience it by fighting it.
The book is not only about working as a US Forest Service Hotshot, it also delves into the history of fire and environmental changes being seen due to the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.
The book was a blend of personal story, history and more, but it also felt somewhat uneven. The history aspect turned into outrage against corporations, while it may be understood, it changed the tenor of the overall book.
It was fascinating to get an inside look at this dangerous job, that is being even more necessary as more of these firestorms and super-heated wildfires will increase in the coming years.
I listened to the audiobook version of this book, which was narrated by the author. Oftentimes author narrators don’t do this very well, but this was an exception and was well done.
Thanks to Penguin Group Riverhead and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book, and PRH Audio for advance access to the audiobook.
The book is not only about working as a US Forest Service Hotshot, it also delves into the history of fire and environmental changes being seen due to the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.
The book was a blend of personal story, history and more, but it also felt somewhat uneven. The history aspect turned into outrage against corporations, while it may be understood, it changed the tenor of the overall book.
It was fascinating to get an inside look at this dangerous job, that is being even more necessary as more of these firestorms and super-heated wildfires will increase in the coming years.
I listened to the audiobook version of this book, which was narrated by the author. Oftentimes author narrators don’t do this very well, but this was an exception and was well done.
Thanks to Penguin Group Riverhead and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book, and PRH Audio for advance access to the audiobook.
June 18, 2025
In 2021, anthropology PhD student Jordan Thomas took a break from his studies to take a seasonal job with an interagency hotshot crew (IHC), a specialized subset of government contractor firefighters trained to contain difficult wildfires using advanced techniques like controlled burning. The grueling six months Thomas spent with this crew, as well as eight years of research he's done on topics like indigenous burning practices, how climate change is dramatically amplifying wildfires, and the public vs. private sector economics of firefighting in the US today, led to this 2025 book, When It All Burns.
I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Thomas. This was an interesting read, and a nice complement to books on similar topics I've read recently like John Vaillant's 2023 Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World (about the devastating 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire in the Canadian province of Alberta) and Trina Moyles' 2021 memoir Lookout: Love, Solitude, and Searching for Wildfire in the Boreal Forest (about her multiple seasons spent working as a wildfire lookout in the isolated boreal forests of Alberta, spotting the first signs of wildfires so firefighting crews could be deployed to contain them). It's becoming increasingly difficult to escape the signs of the pyrocene (a term coined by historian Stephen Pyne to explain the increasingly fire-ravaged epoch we live in).
I'd recommend this book to folks interested in this topic, with a few caveats. First, there are many different narrative threads running throughout that weren't fully integrated (though that'd be difficult to do given the subject matter). Second, I had conflicted feelings about Thomas' viewpoint as an academic anthropologist coloring the narrative of his first-hand experiences as a hotshot firefighter, and the conclusions he drew about his fellow crew members. This came across starkly when he talked about firefighting basecamps set up for traveling firefighter crews, and how for many of his fellow hotshots, these were the biggest "cities" they'd ever inhabited, even if only temporarily. Our worldviews are heavily influenced by our sociocultural backgrounds and life experiences, and Thomas made it clear here that his perspectives were dramatically different than his crewmates'. For Thomas, this hotshot job was clearly always going to be a temporary gig and an experiment in immersive journalism (albeit with very real risks), but he's not truly inhabiting the reality and mindset of what it's like to do this dangerous job with few other viable prospects.
My statistics:
Book 182 for 2025
Book 2108 cumulatively
I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Thomas. This was an interesting read, and a nice complement to books on similar topics I've read recently like John Vaillant's 2023 Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World (about the devastating 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire in the Canadian province of Alberta) and Trina Moyles' 2021 memoir Lookout: Love, Solitude, and Searching for Wildfire in the Boreal Forest (about her multiple seasons spent working as a wildfire lookout in the isolated boreal forests of Alberta, spotting the first signs of wildfires so firefighting crews could be deployed to contain them). It's becoming increasingly difficult to escape the signs of the pyrocene (a term coined by historian Stephen Pyne to explain the increasingly fire-ravaged epoch we live in).
I'd recommend this book to folks interested in this topic, with a few caveats. First, there are many different narrative threads running throughout that weren't fully integrated (though that'd be difficult to do given the subject matter). Second, I had conflicted feelings about Thomas' viewpoint as an academic anthropologist coloring the narrative of his first-hand experiences as a hotshot firefighter, and the conclusions he drew about his fellow crew members. This came across starkly when he talked about firefighting basecamps set up for traveling firefighter crews, and how for many of his fellow hotshots, these were the biggest "cities" they'd ever inhabited, even if only temporarily. Our worldviews are heavily influenced by our sociocultural backgrounds and life experiences, and Thomas made it clear here that his perspectives were dramatically different than his crewmates'. For Thomas, this hotshot job was clearly always going to be a temporary gig and an experiment in immersive journalism (albeit with very real risks), but he's not truly inhabiting the reality and mindset of what it's like to do this dangerous job with few other viable prospects.
My statistics:
Book 182 for 2025
Book 2108 cumulatively
January 17, 2025
One of the most empathetic, well-researched, informative, enraging (pardon the pun), engaging, and sensitive books I've ever read. Jordan is such an elegant and beautiful writer; I was moved to tears several times over the course of this book.
I learned so much about indigenous burning practices/fire stewardship in When It All Burns. I also learned about how much colonization, genocide, and corporate greed directly led to the immensely destructive fires we're seeing in California today. This isn't even a mere suggestion--when we read our history and talk to indigenous communities, we can understand exactly what is going on.
We cannot keep letting billionaires and climate change deniers keep getting away with spreading misinformation and destroying our planet. I hope many, many people read this book and that it stirs something inside them.
I learned so much about indigenous burning practices/fire stewardship in When It All Burns. I also learned about how much colonization, genocide, and corporate greed directly led to the immensely destructive fires we're seeing in California today. This isn't even a mere suggestion--when we read our history and talk to indigenous communities, we can understand exactly what is going on.
We cannot keep letting billionaires and climate change deniers keep getting away with spreading misinformation and destroying our planet. I hope many, many people read this book and that it stirs something inside them.
June 28, 2025
In his afterword, Jordan Thomas states: "The fires are going to come, but our political choices will shape how they burn." and I think that aptly sums up the driving point of this book. Jordan Thomas is an anthropologist and former "hotshot" firefighter. He spent months fighting some of the fiercest fires this country has seen and shares those experiences in the first second, and third parts of this book. The fourth part primarily focuses on his experiences after, when he went back into academia and began an even deeper research on the ways fire is an integral part of life, society, and culture--especially in the western US.
I learned a lot through reading this book and I genuinely enjoyed all of it. Modern issues and events aren't things I typically dive into, but I'm learning to appreciate them more and more. This didn't read wildly academic either, which made it more engaging while keeping it easy for readers to digest. Highly recommend.
I learned a lot through reading this book and I genuinely enjoyed all of it. Modern issues and events aren't things I typically dive into, but I'm learning to appreciate them more and more. This didn't read wildly academic either, which made it more engaging while keeping it easy for readers to digest. Highly recommend.
August 31, 2025
Read this for a story at work and forgot to review it here but it is actually so good I would’ve read it for fun! It reads like an action novel while also expertly talking about very complicated issues
May 30, 2025
I preordered When It All Burns because I was genuinely excited by the premise a firefighter-anthropologist writing about climate change, Indigenous land practices, and life on the front lines of wildfire. It seemed like a rare opportunity to get both lived experience and critical insight.
Unfortunately, the book didn’t deliver on that promise. While it includes vivid descriptions of fire season and some important critiques of fire management policy, it often feels scattered. The narrative jumps between memoir, analysis, and philosophical reflection, but never quite ties those threads together in a meaningful way. Frustratingly, the book doesnt really add anything to the broader conversation. I felt like I've read this before.
Worse, the author draws on the intensity and trauma of frontline firefighting, but ultimately seems more interested in using that experience as a platform than really reckoning with what it means. It left me feeling like he missed the emotional and cultural depth of the story he was trying to tell.
The book feels more like a personal brand exercise than a contribution to the conversation. Disappointed.
Unfortunately, the book didn’t deliver on that promise. While it includes vivid descriptions of fire season and some important critiques of fire management policy, it often feels scattered. The narrative jumps between memoir, analysis, and philosophical reflection, but never quite ties those threads together in a meaningful way. Frustratingly, the book doesnt really add anything to the broader conversation. I felt like I've read this before.
Worse, the author draws on the intensity and trauma of frontline firefighting, but ultimately seems more interested in using that experience as a platform than really reckoning with what it means. It left me feeling like he missed the emotional and cultural depth of the story he was trying to tell.
The book feels more like a personal brand exercise than a contribution to the conversation. Disappointed.
July 17, 2025
✨4 stars✨
Memoir, autobiography, fact, research…Interesting
Memoir, autobiography, fact, research…Interesting
August 24, 2025
oh it’s so good. this is everything i’ve ever wanted in a book ab wildfires. he’s got climate change talk without giving me a panic attack, he’s got prescribed burns (!!!!), he’s got experience as a hotshot firefighters, he’s got history of fire, he’s got indigenous insights. it’s perfect!!! jordan thomas, i love you. did i cry while listening to this? maybe! did it make me think for a moment that i could be a hotshot firefighter? who knows! anyway. this was epic. i recommend to literally everyone. this is The Wildfire Book imo
ps what am i supposed to do now
ps what am i supposed to do now
November 13, 2025
What a fantastic read! Jordan does such a great job of presenting multifaceted views of how and why today's megafires have developed and the experience of fighting them as a hotshot for a year. As an anthropologist he details how colonization, genocide, corporate logging and the criminalization of indigenous burning practices have caused a diseased environment that is prone to fires and megafires. Thankfully, the book ends somewhat hopefully with a chapter about the revival of indigenous burning practices being taught to federal and state forest and fire professionals.
September 19, 2025
Edit: 5 stars. I thought about it and it’s too much of a banger.
Jordan Thomas gives a great amount of care to the subject of fire suppression and climate change, and the way he weaves it with his own personal experience fighting California wildfires is extremely entertaining and immersive. I learned a lot from this book and I highly recommend it.
Jordan Thomas gives a great amount of care to the subject of fire suppression and climate change, and the way he weaves it with his own personal experience fighting California wildfires is extremely entertaining and immersive. I learned a lot from this book and I highly recommend it.
June 29, 2025
Just the right balance of hotshot crew storytelling and researched ecological and indigenous history all related to forestry and megafires, prescribed burns, and how California and the western US is intimately bound up with fire.
June 7, 2025
I went into When It All Burns - written by Jordan Thomas, who spent a year fighting wildfires with the Los Padres hotshots - expecting a book about fighting wildfires in the age of climate change. And it is that, but it's also more. This feels like multiple books in one, and all are timely and urgent.
Partly, it's a history of America's relationship with fire, from the Indigenous tribes who used fire to cultivate and steward their lands to the rise of fire suppression and the growth of the wildfire industrial complex. It's also a behind-the-scenes look at the lives of wildland firefighters - the grueling work and long days, the low pay and lack of health insurance, the macho culture, and the troubling incentive structure that leads firefighters to hope for more wildfires just to make ends meet. (Not to mention they're barely scraping by while often risking their lives to protect the property of the wealthy.) And finally, it's an exploration of how climate change and extractive capitalism have given rise to a new breed of wildfires - fires that are more intense, more destructive, and harder to predict.
This book gave me a lot to think about. Thomas doesn't hide his point of view, but he's careful to consider opposing perspectives and acknowledge areas of uncertainty. As an environmentalist, I found parts of this book uncomfortable. It turns out fighting modern fires often requires using vast amounts of energy, cutting down trees, and setting additional fires. It's jarring, but a (hopefully temporary) response to decades of mismanagement of our land - harm that Thomas and others are working to combat through a more balanced, restorative approach to fire.
This is a book that infuriated me, saddened me, and sometimes challenged my views. It also left me more committed than ever to fighting for climate and environmental causes, and may have set a personal record for tabbed pages (I'm not usually that person!). With wildfire season - if "season" is still a meaningful term - already underway, this feels like an important read.
*thank you to Riverhead Books for sending an ARC in exchange for an honest review
Partly, it's a history of America's relationship with fire, from the Indigenous tribes who used fire to cultivate and steward their lands to the rise of fire suppression and the growth of the wildfire industrial complex. It's also a behind-the-scenes look at the lives of wildland firefighters - the grueling work and long days, the low pay and lack of health insurance, the macho culture, and the troubling incentive structure that leads firefighters to hope for more wildfires just to make ends meet. (Not to mention they're barely scraping by while often risking their lives to protect the property of the wealthy.) And finally, it's an exploration of how climate change and extractive capitalism have given rise to a new breed of wildfires - fires that are more intense, more destructive, and harder to predict.
This book gave me a lot to think about. Thomas doesn't hide his point of view, but he's careful to consider opposing perspectives and acknowledge areas of uncertainty. As an environmentalist, I found parts of this book uncomfortable. It turns out fighting modern fires often requires using vast amounts of energy, cutting down trees, and setting additional fires. It's jarring, but a (hopefully temporary) response to decades of mismanagement of our land - harm that Thomas and others are working to combat through a more balanced, restorative approach to fire.
This is a book that infuriated me, saddened me, and sometimes challenged my views. It also left me more committed than ever to fighting for climate and environmental causes, and may have set a personal record for tabbed pages (I'm not usually that person!). With wildfire season - if "season" is still a meaningful term - already underway, this feels like an important read.
*thank you to Riverhead Books for sending an ARC in exchange for an honest review
November 4, 2025
Thomas very effectively blends history, ecology, economics, and (slightly less effectively, in my opinion) masculine memoir of physical labor. Thomas balances personal experience in hotshot firefighting, reflecting heavily on the risk and resilience of the firefighters on the ground, with a very contemplative analysis of how we got here. I loved that this situated the current state of wildland firefighting deeply in indigenous history, outlining indigenous land management practices and challenging the myth that American forests were "untouched" prior to colonial intervention. I also loved that it looked forward, into the challenges and concerns that lay ahead for the various parties interested in returning our ecosystems to healthy balance.
April 19, 2025
This is one of the most well-researched and informative, yet highly readable books on an environmental issue that I've ever encountered. Jordan Thomas wears two literary hats throughout the book. One perspective is recounting his 6-month, beyond grueling time working a fire season with the Los Padres Hotshots. I was familiar with some of what 'Hot Shots' do from other documentaries I'd seen, but Jordan gave an inside view of the job that was truly shocking. I think it's safe to say that people choosing this as a career are definitely way undervalued and underpaid.
The other dimension of the book detailed the social, political and economic sides of the megafire story, with a large portion dedicated to the initial colonization of our country as well as the genocide and other atrocities that have taken place against the indigenous community for hundreds of years. It's an aspect of American history that is sadly neglected in most textbooks and definitely needs to be brought to light. Jordan did this in a very skillful and powerful way, and I felt very moved as I read those chapters. He also wrote about the methods that the indigenous people practice to live in harmony with the land and the burning/stewardship practices that they use, that are so much better than the strategies that are currently being used by our government.
Jordan further delved into the government policies that have been shaping our management of forest fires for years. He explained very clearly how the key stakeholders, from high-ranking government officials to businesses, that are all about profit but have little care about the long-term effects of their practices, have decided and influenced public forest policies. With the current trend in wildfires, both in size and intensity, it's very clear that our government management/business practices of treating wildfires as a 'battle to be won' have completely failed. Jordan shared what can be done to return our forests to a healthier state, and in time reverse the trend of wildfires to destroy more and more acreage, properties and lives.
My hope is that many people will read this book and that it will open their eyes to how we got where we are, and also their minds (especially those in policy making positions) on how to turn the tide as a nation with our current wildfire crisis.
The other dimension of the book detailed the social, political and economic sides of the megafire story, with a large portion dedicated to the initial colonization of our country as well as the genocide and other atrocities that have taken place against the indigenous community for hundreds of years. It's an aspect of American history that is sadly neglected in most textbooks and definitely needs to be brought to light. Jordan did this in a very skillful and powerful way, and I felt very moved as I read those chapters. He also wrote about the methods that the indigenous people practice to live in harmony with the land and the burning/stewardship practices that they use, that are so much better than the strategies that are currently being used by our government.
Jordan further delved into the government policies that have been shaping our management of forest fires for years. He explained very clearly how the key stakeholders, from high-ranking government officials to businesses, that are all about profit but have little care about the long-term effects of their practices, have decided and influenced public forest policies. With the current trend in wildfires, both in size and intensity, it's very clear that our government management/business practices of treating wildfires as a 'battle to be won' have completely failed. Jordan shared what can be done to return our forests to a healthier state, and in time reverse the trend of wildfires to destroy more and more acreage, properties and lives.
My hope is that many people will read this book and that it will open their eyes to how we got where we are, and also their minds (especially those in policy making positions) on how to turn the tide as a nation with our current wildfire crisis.
October 27, 2025
Initially thought it was going to be one of my favorite reads of the year. Picked it up after seeing it was a national book award contender. The book swings between inspiring praise for those who risk their lives fighting wildfires and deep guilt over how little we value them. It’s remarkable how we can call these people heroes yet force many to pay for their own recovery from on-the-job injuries through GoFundMe campaigns.
What I appreciated was Thomas traces the long history of fire, from Indigenous burning practices suppressed by colonial and federal policies to the Forest Service’s shift from conservation to serving logging interests. He shows how corporate greed and disaster capitalism have fueled today’s wildfire crisis, where billions in federal fire-suppression funds end up enriching private industry instead of protecting communities or workers.
At times the narrative feels repetitive, but that mirrors the monotony and mental toll of life on a hotshot crew. Watching the author embed himself with these firefighters, isolating from friends and family while confronting the emotional weight of the job, makes for an honest, exhausting, and ultimately moving account.
I think it would have been a five-star read if it had addressed California’s use of prison labor in wildfire crews. I was surprised it completely neglected to mention it. California, where Thomas lives and works, uses incarcerated populations to work on fire lines, cutting brush, digging trenches - while making only a few dollars a day and often cannot easily get firefighting jobs after release due to criminal records. The book exposes many systemic failures of climate mitigation, but overlooking that exploitative practice leaves a notable gap in an otherwise searing critique of capital
What I appreciated was Thomas traces the long history of fire, from Indigenous burning practices suppressed by colonial and federal policies to the Forest Service’s shift from conservation to serving logging interests. He shows how corporate greed and disaster capitalism have fueled today’s wildfire crisis, where billions in federal fire-suppression funds end up enriching private industry instead of protecting communities or workers.
At times the narrative feels repetitive, but that mirrors the monotony and mental toll of life on a hotshot crew. Watching the author embed himself with these firefighters, isolating from friends and family while confronting the emotional weight of the job, makes for an honest, exhausting, and ultimately moving account.
I think it would have been a five-star read if it had addressed California’s use of prison labor in wildfire crews. I was surprised it completely neglected to mention it. California, where Thomas lives and works, uses incarcerated populations to work on fire lines, cutting brush, digging trenches - while making only a few dollars a day and often cannot easily get firefighting jobs after release due to criminal records. The book exposes many systemic failures of climate mitigation, but overlooking that exploitative practice leaves a notable gap in an otherwise searing critique of capital
July 25, 2025
I come from a family of many fire fighters, so I have always been fascinated with the relationship between humans and fire. This is far and away the best book I have read about wildland fire.
I trained to be an Incident Metrorologist early in my career, and I found the author's accounts of wildland firefighting vivid and riveting. Then, from practical and philosophical perspectives the author expands on the complex relationship between society, fire and the land. The underlying thesis is that modern society's approach to wildland fire has deviated from thousands of years of human experience - during a time when our environment is changing rapidly. This erroneous approach, climate change and many other factors have created the conditions for destructive megafires which burn millions of acres and damage and destroy lives. The current pattern of these fires is not normal. If we can adjust our attitudes about wildland fire, maybe we can repair our broken relationship with fire and slow or even reverse this trend. For some readers with certain ideological views, you may judge the narrative of a brutal, ruthless period of American history as "woke" (whatever the hell that means). I urge you to push through those impressions and read this important and incredibly well-written and researched work. You will learn a great deal.
I trained to be an Incident Metrorologist early in my career, and I found the author's accounts of wildland firefighting vivid and riveting. Then, from practical and philosophical perspectives the author expands on the complex relationship between society, fire and the land. The underlying thesis is that modern society's approach to wildland fire has deviated from thousands of years of human experience - during a time when our environment is changing rapidly. This erroneous approach, climate change and many other factors have created the conditions for destructive megafires which burn millions of acres and damage and destroy lives. The current pattern of these fires is not normal. If we can adjust our attitudes about wildland fire, maybe we can repair our broken relationship with fire and slow or even reverse this trend. For some readers with certain ideological views, you may judge the narrative of a brutal, ruthless period of American history as "woke" (whatever the hell that means). I urge you to push through those impressions and read this important and incredibly well-written and researched work. You will learn a great deal.
November 27, 2025
This remarkable book exemplifies anthropology at its best, among its and the author's many enviable virtues. Accessible anthropology at that: Thomas writes beautifully and grippingly, but sacrifices none of the complexity required to think about the past, present, and not totally hopeless future of humans' relationship with large fires.
It's exemplary anthropology for substantive and methodological reasons: it does not reduce complex causalities to any single set of factors — natural, social, biological — but charts the ways fire suppression came to be, and came to be one key factor us — the whole world — having to confront the new predicable megafires. Thomas is not the first ethnologist to take on dangerous tasks to understand his subject, but to become a wilderness firefighter, which is one of the most dangerous jobs there is, is still something I imagine about 0.0000001% of Ph.D. students choose for their fieldwork. I recall a colleague who was once incensed when some magazine list "professor" as one of the easiest jobs. I actually agree, at least on some dimensions, and to think that Thomas swung to the other end of the job demandingess side after being a Marshall scholar at Cambridge makes me admire him just for that.
But the book isn't really about how cool Thomas is. It's a complex analysis, a compelling critique, and, in a much needed way, an offer of hope for us.
It's exemplary anthropology for substantive and methodological reasons: it does not reduce complex causalities to any single set of factors — natural, social, biological — but charts the ways fire suppression came to be, and came to be one key factor us — the whole world — having to confront the new predicable megafires. Thomas is not the first ethnologist to take on dangerous tasks to understand his subject, but to become a wilderness firefighter, which is one of the most dangerous jobs there is, is still something I imagine about 0.0000001% of Ph.D. students choose for their fieldwork. I recall a colleague who was once incensed when some magazine list "professor" as one of the easiest jobs. I actually agree, at least on some dimensions, and to think that Thomas swung to the other end of the job demandingess side after being a Marshall scholar at Cambridge makes me admire him just for that.
But the book isn't really about how cool Thomas is. It's a complex analysis, a compelling critique, and, in a much needed way, an offer of hope for us.
August 9, 2025
Oh wow, I LOVED this book! The author is both a serious academic (who shines his academic light on the history and cultural aspects of wildfire, especially in California where the author is based) and a former Hot Shot fire fighter with the Los Padres Hot Shots out of Santa Barbara. The book is about half textbook information and half personal story. The personal stories are the most interesting. He perfectly captures the power dynamics and camaraderie that exist among the members of any intense team, up to and including the mythical figure of Aoki, the sage of the team with his long hair and skin-grafted hands. The book does a great job of explaining the sheer hard work and skill required of Hot Shot-level firefighters, and also the toll it takes on your family and the unfairness of the compensation structure for fire fighters, especially if they happen to be injured. As a native Californian, with early memories of evacuations and family members’ houses burned, I found everything about this book completely fascinating.
November 30, 2025
Each year, countless wildfires ravage parts of North America, destroying everything in their path. Anthropologist Jordan Thomas relates his experiences with the Los Padres Hotshots while investigating how past fire suppression practices, cultural oppression and the current climate crisis have led to the creation of megafires.
A few years ago, I read Fire Weather by John Valiant - a book about the Fort McMurray fire and why it marked a drastic change in how we fight wildfires in Canada. Since that time the entire country has suffered unimaginable losses and smoke-filled summers due to fire. I'm sure there are countless techniques and theories on how to fight these fires, but one thing has become crystal clear to me: we've done this to ourselves. That being said, Jordan Thomas shows us that it's not hopeless if we can work together to understand fire's place in our ecosystems.
I was fascinated by Thomas' experiences with the hot shots - it's a brutal, physically devastating job that comes without health benefits or even a decent salary. And, unsurprisingly, his deep dive into the history of fire in the US shows many similarities with our own history. If we're lucky, we may still have time to change the course we're mapping for our future.
A few years ago, I read Fire Weather by John Valiant - a book about the Fort McMurray fire and why it marked a drastic change in how we fight wildfires in Canada. Since that time the entire country has suffered unimaginable losses and smoke-filled summers due to fire. I'm sure there are countless techniques and theories on how to fight these fires, but one thing has become crystal clear to me: we've done this to ourselves. That being said, Jordan Thomas shows us that it's not hopeless if we can work together to understand fire's place in our ecosystems.
I was fascinated by Thomas' experiences with the hot shots - it's a brutal, physically devastating job that comes without health benefits or even a decent salary. And, unsurprisingly, his deep dive into the history of fire in the US shows many similarities with our own history. If we're lucky, we may still have time to change the course we're mapping for our future.
June 21, 2025
Thank you to Riverhead & Jordan Thomas for the gifted copy.
Did you know what a Hotshot crew actually does? Because I didn’t, at least not until I read this book. I was today years old when I learned the proper term for their job title and what it really involves. This book follows Jordan Thomas, a PhD student in anthropology, who takes on a seasonal job with a Hotshot crew. It’s incredibly well-researched, powerful, and deeply engaging, and it’s all handled with a lot of care and thoughtfulness. What I loved most is that the story is told from two perspectives, giving it so much depth. Through Jordan’s experience, you get a real sense of how intense and physically demanding this work is. These firefighters put so much on the line, and after reading this, it’s clear they deserve way more recognition and respect for everything they do.
Did you know what a Hotshot crew actually does? Because I didn’t, at least not until I read this book. I was today years old when I learned the proper term for their job title and what it really involves. This book follows Jordan Thomas, a PhD student in anthropology, who takes on a seasonal job with a Hotshot crew. It’s incredibly well-researched, powerful, and deeply engaging, and it’s all handled with a lot of care and thoughtfulness. What I loved most is that the story is told from two perspectives, giving it so much depth. Through Jordan’s experience, you get a real sense of how intense and physically demanding this work is. These firefighters put so much on the line, and after reading this, it’s clear they deserve way more recognition and respect for everything they do.
November 24, 2025
Jordan Thomas took a break from his anthropology studies to work as a hotshot on one of California's highly respected wildfire fighting crews. In When It All Burns, Thomas merges his studies and experience to explore wildfires from a memoir perspective of someone on the front lines of battling megafires combined with a look at the way Indigenous peoples have used fire for centuries to steward the land. Add into this a look at how politics and governmental policies and climate change impact fire management, and you have a pretty comprehensive look at wildfires including their history and current impact. Thomas is a strong writer and this is a really impactful read.
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July 26, 2025i cant tell if itsman tryna write kook or vice versa. Still cheese in the writing department. Just write aout it in ur voice brah, but alsooooo that IS ur voice and that is U so why am I judging??? Anyways…good report on a topic no. The thesis was supported by so much good stuff. Personal Experience, friend accounts, history, TEK stories myth fucjjjj Showed me a bunch of different sides but how the best way to go through this world is through empathy. Be empathetic. But also…U should know better, TRUMP!
August 20, 2025
This book deserves the acclaim and promotion it’s received. The narrative is moving and informative. The book is a well-researched factual book discussing the origins of prescribed fire, fire suppression, and the political, cultural, and economic factors contributing to megafires in a time of climate change. It is also a compelling emotional look at the lives of underpaid federal fire fighting and forest management staff. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes their nonfiction accompanied by a story and folks asking themselves why the US is blanketed with smoke every summer now.
November 20, 2025
I read this for my book club and it’s a real contender for the things we’re looking for. Outside of that it was just really interesting. It’s written from a fire fighter’s POV about climate change. He’s on the hot shot crew in California fighting massive forest fires. It’s gritty - his experience in the trenches. The politics that go into it. Their mental health declining. It wasn’t a light happy read by any means but I did learn a lot!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 7, 2025
This is a fascinating and brilliant book. I picked it up after learning that it was a finalist for the National Book Award, and that the author was a former student of a friend. It’s part memoir of the author’s time working as a hotshot firefighter in California, part anthropology and history study on the history of controlled burns and fire suppression, and a complete masterpiece with beautiful writing and reflections. Highly recommended!!
September 18, 2025
this book changed the way i think about fire. changing my perspective is the highest praise i can give any non-fiction.
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