50,000 people evacuated. 334 homes destroyed. 5,700 firefighters working alongside 2,000 soldiers. 3 men killed. More private B.C. property lost than ever before. With 160 colour photographs and a foreword by Premier Gordon Campbell, Firestorm: The Summer B.C. Burned (M&S $39.99) mostly allows pictures to tell the story of the unprecedented devastation wrought by last summer's fires in the B.C. interior-but there are some odd details. Returnees were instructed by health officials to discard their taped-shut fridges rather than re-open them, for fear of spreading molds. Whereas media coverage of the fires was Kelowna-centric, concentrating on folks who were losing swimming pools, this book has a section for Kamloops and another for other fronts. It's compiled and edited by freelancer Ross Freake and Kelowna reporter Don Plant. 0-7710-4772-X

[BCBW Summer 2004]