When It All Burns

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 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.

Jordan Thomas is an anthropologist and former Los Padres hotshot wildland firefighter. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Seattle Times, and The Drift. Thomas is a Marshall Scholar with graduate degrees from the University of Cambridge and Durham University. He is currently a Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of California. He lives in Santa Barbara, California.