Jordan Thomas didn’t want to study and write about fire, he wanted to see it close, so he turned the experience into an exceptional new book, “When All Burns.” Thomas, an expert in the fire-shaped cultural forces, has joined Ross Padres Hotshot, a crew member who may be considered the firefighter’s naval seal. He spent 2021 fighting wildfires to extremes and dangerous battles, even by these globally warm times standards.
The first person account is well-convincing, especially given Thomas’ gift for concise, layered and explanatory writing. But Thomas keeps it in his mind more here. He alters the sequence of horrifying behavior and macho team building with deep diving into indigenous cultural practices related to ecology, science, economics and, most importantly, fire. In Thomas’s hands, these subjects are interconnected, and his writing brings new heat to the ubiquitous subject.
If you live near Los Angeles, you may very much prefer not to read “when it’s all burning.” But you should. Just this January, a series of wildfires destroyed the area and was fed by breaking through the winds, droughts and low humidity in Santa Ana. The Times reported that the expected damage from the fire had risen in January. The fire was killed and the economic impact was expected to grow in an unexpected future. “When Everything is Burning” is well written before this happens, and sometimes carries the power of prophecy. The next one is already on fire, but certainly more.
Thomas sets up the table previously. “In the last 20 years, wildfires have done things that even computer models can’t predict. Environmental events where scientists are properly plaguing the brain for dystopian technology: firenados, gigafires, megafire. Impermeable to historically inflammatory destruction.”
In other words, it only gets worse. As a member of the Hotshot crew, Thomas hacked the undergrowth with a chainsaw as the firefighters advanced, and he was fascinated by the people assigned to fight these otherworldly hell, most male subculture. But the education and knowledge he carries makes him deeply vague about the very nature of fire control.
For centuries, indigenous people around the world have used controlled fires, or “cultural burning,” for some purpose, up to reducing risks from agriculture. Not controlled fire. However, such practices did not jibe more and more modern economies. In North America, especially, colonialists thought they were burning as both a threat to burning industrial capitalism. The fire extension was more than a by-product of Native American genocide, and it was part of the master plan. “In California, fires have always connected people to food. Researchers who tried to reveal this history often suppressed their work like another controlled fire. And as practice declined, wildfires entered into violations.
As you can imagine, living as a hotshot is full of medical risks. Hotshot hates passing overtime and hazard pay that is sick, injured and dependent on. As Thomas writes, “The unstable life of hotshots is one flashpoint in the field of self-enhancing expansion in social and environmental crises. Scientists call this the sacrifice zone.
Every time “All All Burns” threatens to dry like a flammable brush, Thomas returns it to his own firefighter, showing him the ropes, denounce him, and returning it to the cast of hotshot characters who saved him.
The two Ross Padres leaders are Edgar, Edgar and the Stern Sergeant, who rides everyone with equal poison, Aoki demands the same way as the Shaman War attitude. Aoki interviews Thomas about his employment as the two men hike down the steep hill. Thomas will ultimately need to decide whether to ask questions that occupy oxygen or that will focus on the task at hand.
“With some degree of physical suffering, the pain is almost comedy,” he points out. He assesses his condition before hiking the mountain to bring the injured firefighters back downhill. “My legs were torn apart and oozing out in my elk leather boots. Every inch of my skin was a rash of poison oak. A few hours before I was neutralised by muscle cramps.” And after a while, “The only antidote to discomfort was to return to a level of numbing fatigue.”
“When It All Burns” is one of the books that immerse readers in the nuances of the world that most of us know only through the lens of tragedy and destruction. The crystalline prose of Thomas’s visceral organs simply adds fuel to the fire.
Vognar is a freelance cultural writer.
