Jordan Thomas

Jordan Thomas (US)  is an anthropologist and former Los Padres hotshot wildland firefighter. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times and The Drift. Thomas is a Marshall Scholar with graduate degrees from the University of Cambridge and Durham University. He is currently a Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of California.
At Crossing Border he will talk about his first book When It All Burns.

In When It All Burns, wildland firefighter and anthropologist Jordan Thomas recounts a single, brutal six-month fire season with the Los Padres Hotshots—the special forces of America’s firefighters. Being a hotshot is among the most difficult jobs on earth. Thomas viscerally renders his crew’s attempts to battle flames that are often too destructive to contain. He uncovers the hidden cultural history of megafires, revealing how humanity’s symbiotic relationship with wildfire became a war—and what can be done to change it back.

Thomas weaves ecology and the history of Indigenous peoples’ oppression, federal forestry, and the growth of the fire industrial complex into a riveting narrative about a new phase in the climate crisis. It’s an immersive story of community in the most perilous of circumstances, told with humor, humility, and affection.