About this item
Early morning on Monday, October 9, 2017, wildfires burned through Northern California, resulting in 44 fatalities. In addition, 6,200 homes and 8,900 structures and were destroyed. Author Brian Fiess firsthand account of this tragic event is an honest, unflinching depiction of his personal experiences, including losing his house and every possession he and his wife had that didnt fit into the back of their car. In the days that followed, as the fires continued to burn through the area, Brian hastily pulled together A Fire Story and posted it online - and it immediately went viral. He expanded his original web comic to include environmental insight and the fire stories of his neighbors and others in his community. This paperback version includes 32 new pages that bring the story up-to-date. A Fire Story is a candid testimony of the wildfires that left homes destroyed, families broken, and a community determined to rebuild.
About the Author
Brian Fies has a Physics major, an English minor, one wife, two kids and a dog. He's been a journalist, an environmental chemist, a freelance journalist, a science writer and, beginning early in the 21st century, a cartoonist. His first graphic novel, "Mom's Cancer," a true story about his mother's diagnosis and treatment, won an Eisner Award, a German Youth Literature Prize, and other recognition. His second graphic novel, "Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow," looks at the Space Age through a Pop Culture lens to wonder how we went from optimism to pessimism; from utopianism to dystopianism. Both it and his follow-up webcomic, "The Last Mechanical Monster," were nominated for Eisner and other awards. In October 2017, Brian and his wife Karen lost their home in what was at that time the largest wildfire in California history. The day after, he went to the store to buy shoes, a shirt, and art supplies. The webcomic he made, "A Fire Story," gave a first-hand account from ground zero of a major disaster. An animated version from PBS station KQED won a regional Emmy Award in 2018. In 2019, Brian expanded his webcomic into a full-length print version of "A Fire Story." He and Karen rebuilt their house on its former site, and are now working to make it a home.