I was a victim of the Santa Barbara Tea Fire in 2008, and even ten years later it's funny just how cathartic this read was for me. The author hits all the points of a shared community trauma-- right down to the little tedious bits like insurance making you list everything you lost and just how emotionally hard that is to do, or the way people outside of the trauma impart well-meaning but ultimately unhelpful truisms, or even ways in which members of the community come together. While this memoir touches a specific time and place, it is also relatable to a wider audience, as it touches on issues of what makes us unique as individuals, how we cope with loss, and how we struggle to move forward through difficulties in life. Thanks to Netgalley for a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Fire Story, written and illustrated by author Brian Fies is amazingly shocking considering what happened also this year in California.

Global Warming helped by people not too educated who leave in the woods pieces of glass in grade to become real "bombs" of fires, create a point: California is burning and every tree burnt means less oxygen for the Planet and for the population without counting what happens to the population if in grade to run away as soon as possible in term of stress, in term of a new re-start, tragic, and never simple.

At the moment, an entire town of 27.000 people, Paradise, paradoxically became a real hell: destroyed weeks ago, like also localities chosen by the stars of Hollywood and rich people because beautiful locations where to living in.

In this new book by ABRAMS that will come soon the first account of what it meant in the Napa Valley Fire of last year to leave, if not forever, for a long while, the house where Brian Fies lived in; it will be necessary to re-build completely the home where people spent many years of their existence but at the same time everyone know that it won't have the same taste, because the place radically changed after the fire and it will take decades for seeing the lost scenario left behind and eaten by the fire restored as it was previously.

The story starts from an alarm and once the couple know that they must leave, what they want to keep and what they want to leave; a brief selection of the most important items of the existence made in a few minutes knowing that maybe all the rest left behind will be destroyed forever. Animals, some clothes, maybe the smart phone, some photo albums for not seeing destroyed all the existence also fixated in pictures; some special items.

Behind an entire existence of objects speaking of special moments that burning will become sweet and lost memories.

Sometimes there were precious items left alone in a drawer and not immediately remembered because old more than 20-30 years; sometimes objects speaking to the soul but that couldn't accompany people who left the house rushing and searching, first of all to save their existence.

This account will introduce us, sometimes ironically, also the problematic of the "immediately after" reporting also an account of many other people who, that October 9 2017 lost everything. Numbers are immense also in the big fire of the past year: 6.200 homes and 8.900 structures were destroyed.

This book was previously launched on the net and with great success.

I strongly recommend it to all of you, for trying to understand what it means to lose everything in a few seconds for re-build an existence ex novo.

I thank NetGalley and ABRAMS for this ebook.

Heartfelt memoir about losing your home in the worst wildfire in decades. A Fire Story is sad but ultimately uplifting.

Multiple fires merged into a Northern California firestorm of epic proportions. The resulting burn area was the size of 15 Manhattans. Entire neighborhoods burned to the ground overnight. Warnings were mishandled so many survivors had virtually no time to take any belongings. Others didn’t escape in time.

The author, a graphic memoirist, uses his craft to document, in real time, the horrific experience of losing your home and all your stuff in a split second. While he is grateful his family is safe, he states, “Well-meaning people say, ‘It’s just stuff.’ But it’s our stuff. Stuff we created. Stuff we treasured. Stuff from our ancestors we wanted our descendants to have. Stuff is a marker of time and memory. It’s roots.”

Wow, A Fire Story is so real! It throws the reader into a situation that, luckily, few will experience. It will make you appreciate your own stuff more. For myself, I live in a fire-prone area. We’ve been across the street, literally, from two major fires in two different homes and subject to voluntary evacuation orders. I have a bug-out bag of my family pictures and heirlooms ready to go. Are you ready?

If you have been toying with prepping for disaster as a New Year’s resolution, A Fire Story is an excellent shove in that direction. But it is also an exceptional look at human resilience and resourcefulness. I can’t recommend it highly enough. 5 stars!

Thanks to the publisher, Abrams ComicArts, and NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this book, which is a weird thing to say about a graphic memoir based on losing your house in a fire. It was well-written with nice artwork. I appreciated the photographs, which helped to visualize the devastation.

This is a beautiful and simple graphic novel. The art is simple and the story is as well. I loved it.

A Fire Story is an important book and an engaging example of a creator’s vision, brought from the web to the page.

Art and text interweave for a powerful story that captures the reader.

I live in earthquake and fire country. I have lived through three major earthquakes. I have not, as yet, had to live through a fire storm.

I thought, because i read Brian's original post, that he made during the firestorms of Santa Rosa, in 2017, that I would have read all he had to say. I wanted to read this full book, to see if there was more. I started reading it, when I should have been working, and could not put it down.

It is raw, it is in the moment, it is very moving.

This is a view of escaping the fire by freeway.

<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-4633" src="https://g2comm.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Screen-Shot-2018-10-16-at-9.25.13-AM.png" alt="" />

How the fire affected everyone.
<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-4628" src="https://g2comm.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Screen-Shot-2018-10-16-at-4.06.28-PM.png" alt="" />

What they found in the debris.
<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-4627" src="https://g2comm.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Screen-Shot-2018-10-16-at-4.17.08-PM.png" alt="" />

And how it felt.

<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-4626" src="https://g2comm.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Screen-Shot-2018-10-16-at-4.45.26-PM.png" alt="" />

How does it feel to have lost everything. Your home is gone. All the things you have gathered through the years. And not just you, but your neighborhood. Your friends. Your neighbors.

Well written. Sad. Funny. Good book to document what this sort of disaster is like for those who survive.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.