Writer and cartoonist Brian Fies’s graphic memoir about the Californian wildfires of 2017 gives voice to a community rebuilding after the devastation

The California wildfires of 2017 burned through the north of the state, taking with them 44 lives, over 6000 homes and almost 9000 structures. One of the many who lost their home was author Brian Fies, who – armed with a few sharpies and a pad of paper – began to document his experiences as the flames engulfed the state and took all his worldly possessions. First published online, the original comic A Fire Story has now been expanded with added material from the author as well as testimonials from others who have been left devastated by the fire. Fies has weaved their stories of loss, survival and hope into his own. The result is a fascinating and moving account of how a community grieves and begins to rebuild after the loss of the physical things that bind them together.

As Fies illuminates in his book, the fire storms claimed 350 square miles of land, or the size of 15 Manhattans, and with it wiped out lives, homes and entire neighbourhoods. But it is the loss of his family’s personal history that the author is most troubled by. This is not the story of a person lamenting the loss of his privilege or expensive possessions, but rather the loss of the physical history of their life. Gone are the homes his children grew up in, any piece of art he ever created, the field cap his grandfather wore in World War Two and his grandmother’s candy jar from the Depression. Each item Brian Fies loses has an emotional connection to the story of his life, to his history, and A Fire Story does a remarkable job of illustrating how those losses, no matter the size, can take their toll.

The added material within the graphic novel expands upon the scale of the fire and recounts the mountain of tasks facing each person as they begin to clear away the wreckage of their home and look to rebuild. With each new account, Fies gives others time to talk of their experience and detail their loss. As these stories mount up over the course of A Fire Story, you get the sense of how grit, determination and hope begin to blossom. The solidarity between Brian and his fellow fire survivors is strongly felt. There is no easy road back from losing everything in your life and some are worse hit than others. Yet Fies does a great job of hitting the right notes of hopeful and cautious in plotting a course back to normalcy.

A Fire Story is a compelling read – the simplicity of Fies’s art draws you in, his lines are brisk and efficient, detailing the damage in subtly haunting panels. But it is his prose that really brings home the devastation of the fire and the scale of the task facing not just individual survivors, but the entire state of California.

A Fire Story is published by Abrams Books and is available now.

Simon Shiel
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