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“It’s been a while since anyone has developed such a sustained critique of the fire-capitalist development complex, but Gregory Simon has done it in a way that will attract readers to the argument and issues that he tackles. Few other people could write this, and none could write it in this style. This is a book that needs to be read.”—Eric Perramond, Associate Professor of Environmental Science and Southwest Studies at Colorado College
“Flame and Fortune in the American West is a well-researched, provocative, timely, and intensely personal book that goes beyond the headlines to illuminate the causes and consequences of the 1991 Tunnel (Oakland Hills) Fire—the most destructive urban wildfire in American history.”—Peter S. Alagona, Professor of History, Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara
List of contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART I FLAME AND FORTUNE IN THE AMERICAN WEST: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE INCENDIARY
1. The 1991 Tunnel Fire: The Case for an Affluence-Vulnerability Interface
2. The Changing American West: From “Flammable Landscape” to the “Incendiary”
PART II ILLUMINATING THE AFFLUENCE VULNERABILITY INTERFACE IN THE TUNNEL FIRE AREA
3. Trailblazing: Producing Landscapes, Extracting Profits, Inserting Risk
4. Setting the Stage for Disaster: Revenue Maximization, Wealth Protection, and Its Discontents
5. Who’s Vulnerable? The Politics of Identifying, Experiencing, and Reducing Risk
PART III HOW THE WEST WAS SPUN: DEPOLITICIZING THE ROOT CAUSES OF WILDFIRE HAZARDS
6. Smoke Screen: When Explaining Wildfires Conceals the Incendiary
7. Debates of Distraction: Our Inability to See the Incendiary for the Spark
PART IV AFTER THE FIRE: THE CONCOMITANT EXPANSION OF AFFLUENCE AND RISK
8. Dispatches from the Field: Win–Win Outcomes and the Limits of Post-Wildfire Mitigation
9. Out of the Ashes: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism and Financial Opportunism
Conclusion: From Excavating to Treating the Incendiary
Notes
References
Index
About the author
Gregory L. Simon is Associate Professor of Geography and Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Denver and coeditor of Cities, Nature, and Development: The Politics and Production of Urban Vulnerabilities. He has been a core advisor to the United Nations Foundation and is a National Science Foundation grant award winner. He has recently served as a visiting scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles, and at Stanford University.
Summary
Investigates the ongoing politics, folly, and avarice shaping the production of increasingly widespread yet dangerous suburban and exurban landscapes. In this book, the 1991 Oakland Hills Tunnel Fire is used as a starting point to better understand these complex social-environmental processes.
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"Simon’s book will only become more and more important as our reckoning with climate change becomes more urgent."
