Burned

From a bestselling author and Indigenous scientist, Burned is a blistering, deeply researched, on-the-ground account of how we've become trapped in a dangerous cycle of catastrophic wildfire—and a vital vision for a better future with fire.

Fire has always shaped the land. But somewhere along the way, we forgot how to live with it.

Wildfire seasons—and their devastating consequences: widespread toxic air, threatened wildlife, entire human communities displaced—have become our new normal. In Burned, Dr. Jennifer Grenz argues that today's catastrophic fires are not solely the result of climate change. They are also the legacy of how we have influenced our natural environment: a century of colonial land management, fire suppression, and ecological change that has left many landscapes increasingly primed for ignition. We’ve lost our way, she writes; but a course correction is possible, if we start listening to the land.

Dr. Grenz brings us into the recovery efforts for the McKay Creek Fire, which burned 46,000 hectares on St'át'imc territory around Lillooet, British Columbia, in 2021; reports on the sites of destructive fires in Maui, California, and Australia; and lays bare a global crisis shaped by distinct histories.

Drawing together Indigenous knowledge, restoration ecology, firsthand research, and encounters with communities living in the aftermath, Burned explores how we can dismantle the tinderbox and recover our agency in an era of megafire. Eloquent and hopeful, it offers a stirring vision of renewed stewardship—and a future shaped not by the impossible pursuit of a world without fire, but by a better relationship with it.