The fall 2026 catalogue from Beech Street Books features a series called Disasters Across Canada, which includes my new book Fort McMurray Wildfire.

Writing this book occupied a few months at the end of last year, and it was a fascinating and upsetting topic to research. I live in the province where the wildfire took place in 2016 and I remember very well the news reports coming out of the north as the fire, nicknamed The Beast, ravaged the city and surrounding forest more quickly than anyone could have imagined and forced a complicated evacuation of 88,000 people – almost all of them forced to travel out along a single route. To this day, the wildfire remains the costliest insured natural disaster in the Canadian history.

I read a lot of books and combed through reams of personal stories while working on this project. One of the most impactful was Therese Greenwood’s memoir What You Take With You: Wildfire, Family, and The Road Home, a powerful and emotional first-hand account that pulls no punches.

My book and the rest of the Disasters in Canada titles (12 in all!) are geared to children in grades 4 to 6. You’ll find them in school and public libraries across the country, and they can be ordered directly from the publisher.

(Image: Beech Street Books)