Firestorm - by Jacob Soboroff (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

New York Times Bestseller and #1 Los Angeles Times Bestseller

A "gripping, unshakeable firsthand account" (San Francisco Chronicle) of the firestorm that consumed Los Angeles, from the MS NOW reporter and New York Times bestselling author of Separated, who covered the fires on the ground as an LA native.

"Read[s] like a sci-fi thriller." --Los Angeles Times

On the morning of January 7, 2025, a message pinged the phone of Jacob Soboroff, a national reporter for MS NOW. "Big Palisades fire. We are evacuating," his brother texted within minutes of the blaze engulfing the hillside behind the home where he and his pregnant wife were living. "Really bad." An attached photo showed a huge black plume rising from behind the house, an umbrella of smoke towering over everything they owned. Jacob rushed to the office of the bureau chief.

"I should go. I grew up in the Palisades."

Soon he was on the front line of the blaze--his first live report of what would turn out to be weeks covering unimaginable destruction, from both the Palisades Fire and the Eaton Fire, in Altadena. In the days to come, Soboroff appeared across the networks of NBC News as Los Angeles was ablaze, met with displaced residents and workers, and pressed Governor Gavin Newsom in an interview on Meet the Press. But no story Soboroff has covered at home or abroad--the trauma of family separation at the border, the displacement of the war in Ukraine, the collapse of order in Haiti--could have prepared him for reporting live as the hallmarks of his childhood were engulfed in flames around him while his hometown burned to the ground.

But for Soboroff, questions remained after the fires were controlled: what had he just witnessed? How could it have happened? Is it inevitable something like it will happen again? This set Soboroff off on months of reporting--with firefighters, fire victims, political leaders, academics, earth scientists, wildlife biologists, meteorologists and more--that made him keenly aware of how the misfortune of seeing his past carbonize was also a form of time travel into the dystopian world his children will inhabit. This is because the 2025 LA fires were not an isolated tragedy, but rather they are a harbinger--"the fire of the future," in the words of one senior emergency--management official.

Firestorm is the story of the costliest wildfire in American history, the people it affected and the deeply personal connection to one journalist covering it. It is a love letter to Los Angeles, a yearning to understand the fires, and why America's new age of disaster we are living through portends that--without a reckoning of how Los Angeles burned--there is more yet, and worse, to come.

Review Quotes

"Firestorm is Soboroff's gripping, unshakeable firsthand account of what became one of the most catastrophic natural disasters in California on record. . . . Riveting. . . . Compelling and affecting. . . Soboroff dumps readers headfirst into the turmoil of fire trucks running out of fuel and hydrants low on water and pressure, giving us a chance to imagine what it must feel like to lose everything worth saving without a moment's notice." - San Francisco Chronicle

"Firestorm, the first book about the Great Los Angeles Fires of 2025, pulls readers inside Soboroff's reporter's notebook and the nearly two relentless weeks he spent covering the Palisades and subsequent Eaton wildfire. . . .The opening chapters of Firestorm read like a sci-fi thriller." - Los Angeles Times

"A riveting recollection of one of the worst fires in American history. Almost as hard to digest as the extreme loss of life and environmental devastation is Soboroff's reporting on how some of our most prominent public figures responded to the disaster. . . . It's hard to find a sense of hope in this reportage, but Soboroff finds it, beautifully, in the small moments." - BookPage

"An emotional and intrepid account of the Los Angeles wildfires. . . . A cathartically heartbreaking account of the unique horror of watching one's community reduced to ash." - Publishers Weekly

"We're delighted to see [Firestorm] published this month. . . . MS NOW senior political and national reporter Soboroff's weekslong coverage of the Palisades and Eaton Fires began with a text from his brother saying his family was evacuating. Having grown up in the Palisades, Soboroff knew he had to be on the ground. His reporting soon expanded into interviews with survivors, first responders, and even Governor Gavin Newsom. In Firestorm, he explores how these fires happened and what must be done to prevent the next disaster." - Alta Journal, "New January Books"

"For weeks, journalist and author Jacob Soboroff was on the front lines covering the devastation. His reporting was thorough, emotional, and deeply personal. . . . His new book, Firestorm, tells, with incredible detail about the costliest wildfire in American history, the challenges and fortitude of Los Angeles, and what we all must know about these times in which we live."

- Maria Shriver's Sunday Paper

"I have been reading an early copy of Jacob Soboroff's book Firestorm, and it's incredible." - Brian Stelter, CNN Reliable Sources