Wildfire Wars

Ten exciting and suspenseful stories about BC's most memorable forest fires, and the firefighters who lived to tell about their battles.

The Wildfire Reader presents, in an affordable paperback edition, the essays included in Wildfire, offering a concise overview of fire landscapes and the past century of forest policy that has affected them.

Former army ranger Nate Self, a hero from the Robert’s Ridge rescue in Afghanistan, tells his whole story—from the pulse-pounding battle in the mountains of Afghanistan to the high-stakes battle he has waged against post traumatic stress disorder. This book will become a go-to book for understanding the long-term effects of the war on terror. Thousands of families are fighting this battle, and Nate opens up his life—including his successes, tragedies, struggles with thoughts of suicide—to show how his faith and his family pulled him through. Includes 8 pages of color photos. In a nutshell: Excellent book for military familes trying to cope with the family pressures of a soldier's active duty. Inspirational book for a soldier struggling with post traumatic stress disorder . Helps readers understand the importance of faith in dealing with the war. An up-close-and-personal account of the war on terror; and the story of one soldier’s faith. An insider’s account of Robert’s Ridge Rescue in Afghanistan.

"Frightening...Firestorm comes alive when Struzik discusses the work of offbeat scientists." --New York Times Book Review "Comprehensive and compelling." --Booklist "A powerful message." --Kirkus "Should be required reading." --Library Journal In the spring of 2016, the world watched as wildfire ravaged the Canadian town of Fort McMurray. Firefighters named the fire "the Beast." It seemed to be alive with destructive energy, and they hoped never to see anything like it again. Yet it's not a stretch to imagine we will all soon live in a world in which fires like the Beast are commonplace. In Firestorm, Edward Struzik confronts this new reality, offering a deftly woven tale of science, economics, politics, and human determination. It's possible for us to flourish in the coming age of megafires--but it will take a radical new approach that requires acknowledging that fires are no longer avoidable. Living with fire also means, Struzik reveals, that we must better understand how the surprising, far-reaching impacts of these massive fires will linger long after the smoke eventually clears.

The undeniable history of mankind clearly shows us that human conflict has far from passed. In places like Kuwait, Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo, the 20th Century ended brutally. Given the trends of modern conflict, the economic separation of peoples, the rise in religious affiliated terrorism, and the social hatreds that remain between races, tomorrow's wars can only be more violent than those of the past. The X-MAS War is really an anthology of four books: Black Rain For Christmas, The Secret War In South Asia, Sixth Fleet Under, and The Sugar-Sweet Smell of Fear. All four have overlapping storylines. They're tales are all told through the use of news reports, traditional narratives, diary entries, and letters home. Each book is a complete story by itself, but together they give a brand new perspective to the unique aspects of 21st Century warfare!

Forest fires, terrorism, war: explorations of danger by the author of The Perfect Storm. In Fire, Sebastian Junger brings to bear the same meticulous prose that made A Perfect Storm a modern classic onto the inner workings of a terrifying elemental force—an out-of-control inferno burning in the steep canyons of Idaho—and the cast of characters risking everything to bring that force under control. Few writers have been to so many desperate corners of the globe as has Sebastian Junger; fewer still have provided such starkly memorable evocations of characters and events. From the murderous mechanics of the diamond trade in Sierra Leone to the logic of guerrilla warfare in Afghanistan and the forensics of genocide in Kosovo, this collection of Junger's nonfiction will take you places you wouldn't dream of going to on your own.

In August 2003, one of the largest wildfires in Canadian history struck near Kelowna, British Columbia and the surrounding Okanagan Valley, causing unprecedented damage. As Shelley Pacholok observes in this innovative study, the turbulence and extreme conditions that followed in the wake of this disaster destabilized an important area of social life – that of gender relations. Into the Fire combines insights from gender studies and disaster studies to explore the extent to which notions of “masculinity” and “femininity” are challenged in the wake of crises. Pacholok focuses on how gender relations were simultaneously sustained and disrupted among those who fought the fire, drawing on media representations as well as interviews with firefighters . Into the Fire illuminates how disasters can serve as catalysts for new patterns of gender, even in highly masculine spaces.