Trying To Tame The Beast
A catastrophic wildfire turns the boreal forest into an inescapable wall of flame. An entire city of eighty thousand people has hours to run. And for one veteran firefighter, survival is only the beginning of the battle.
In May 2016, a coulee fire southwest of Fort McMurray transforms with terrifying speed into an uncontrollable inferno. Captain Grant Callahan, a seventeen-year veteran of the regional fire service, understands the brutal physics of the boreal woods: bone-dry muskeg, collapsing weather inversions, and crowning spruce that cast embers miles ahead of the front. But no amount of experience prepares him for the day the wind shifts directly toward the subdivisions.
As the firestorm breaches the river valley and sweeps through residential neighborhoods, Grant is thrust onto the front lines of Canada's largest wildfire evacuation. Pushing through gridlocked highways, managing impossible triage calls, and battling spontaneous structure fires, Grant works to hold the corridor open so tens of thousands of residents can escape. Among the evacuees are his wife, Rachel, and their teenage son, Luke, caught in the slow, agonizing exodus down Highway 63.
When the flames finally recede, the landscape is altered beyond recognition. Entire neighborhoods have been reduced to cellar holes and toxic ash. Yet on Beaconwood Rise, Grant's house remains standing-an arbitrary survivor among thirty incinerated homes.
As the grueling recovery phase begins, Grant must navigate contaminated water lines, structural hazards, and the heavy emotional cost of returning to a street where his neighbors lost everything.
Grounded in technical authenticity and intense human drama, this is a gripping disaster novel about the science of wildland fire, the resilience of emergency responders, and the complex reality of coming home after catastrophe.
This is a work of fiction inspired by the historical events of the 2016 Horse River wildfire. The principal characters, their private actions and their dialogue are fictional. Real places, dates, public alerts and documented milestones are used as part of the historical setting.Customer Reviews
ThriftBooks ® and the ThriftBooks ® logo are registered trademarks of Thrift Books Global, LLC
