Wildfire: On the Front Lines with Station 8

Every year wildfires ravage forests, destroy communities, and devastate human lives, with only the bravery of dedicated firefighters creating a barrier against even greater destruction. Throughout the 2016 wildfire season, journalist Heather Hansen witnessed firsthand the heroics of the Station 8 crew in Boulder, Colorado. She tells that story here, layered with the added context of the history, science, landscape, and human behavior that, year-by-year, increases the severity, frequency, and costs of conflagrations in the West. She examines the changes in both mindset and activity around wildfires and tracks the movement from wildfire as something useful, to something feared, to something necessary but roundly dreaded. Wildfire shares the drama, hardships, and experiences of the firefighters who try, sometimes in vain, to prevent destruction when a spark flares out of control. Hansen tells the rich and frightening stories of the firefighters themselves and the challenges they face: a safety system struggling to keep up with fire seasons that are lengthening, fires that are becoming more extreme, and agencies that are struggling to cover the bills.

About the Author :
Heather Hansen is an independent science writer and author. She has won awards from the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the Society of American Travel Writers, and the Colorado Authors League. Based in Los Angeles, Sharmila Devar is a successful working actress with over twenty years of experience performing in TV, film, commercial, animation, and theater projects. She has a BA in economics from The University of Chicago where, thanks to a wide-ranging Common Core, she expanded her love of all things storytelling. She has performed at Chicago's prestigious Steppenwolf Theatre and is known for her recurring television roles on Scandal and in the Star Wars animated world. As a narrator, she has voiced a variety of single and multi-narrator audiobooks-ranging from POC/women's history to pre-school and middle-grade children's series, to self-help to young adult mystery to literary fiction, with a specialty in South Asian diaspora stories and romances. Her narration has been described as "vivid and full of emotion," and she has been praised for her characterizations by Library Journal and InD'tale Magazine. A voracious reader, she counts her curiosity about complicated humans and her passion to bring all their varied stories to life as some of her best qualities. Based in Los Angeles, Sharmila Devar is a successful working actress with over twenty years of experience performing in TV, film, commercial, animation, and theater projects. She has a BA in economics from The University of Chicago where, thanks to a wide-ranging Common Core, she expanded her love of all things storytelling. She has performed at Chicago's prestigious Steppenwolf Theatre and is known for her recurring television roles on Scandal and in the Star Wars animated world. As a narrator, she has voiced a variety of single and multi-narrator audiobooks-ranging from POC/women's history to pre-school and middle-grade children's series, to self-help to young adult mystery to literary fiction, with a specialty in South Asian diaspora stories and romances. Her narration has been described as "vivid and full of emotion," and she has been praised for her characterizations by Library Journal and InD'tale Magazine. A voracious reader, she counts her curiosity about complicated humans and her passion to bring all their varied stories to life as some of her best qualities.