John Vaillant wins Baillie Gifford nonfiction prize with ‘highly relevant’ work on wildfires

Fire Weather, which looks at the blazes that ravaged Canada's prairies in 2016, is a book that forces you to ask some questions of yourself', judges said

Canadian-American writer John Vaillant has won this year's 50,000 Baillie Gifford prize for his book Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World, which judges said was both exceptional" and terrifying".

Vaillant's book tells the story of the wildfires that struck Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada in 2016, while taking in the connected histories of the oil industry and climate science. It is the first book on the topic of the climate emergency to win the prize, the UK's most prestigious honour for non-fiction, since it started in 1999.