Vendôme Pictures Options Fire Weather

Vendôme Pictures (CODA) has optioned the film and TV rights to John Vaillant’s nonfiction book Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World.

The novel explores the events leading to the 2016 multibillion-dollar disaster that took place in Fort McMurray, the hub of Canada’s oil industry and the U.S.’s biggest foreign supplier, that melted vehicles, burned out houses and drove 88,000 people from the city in a single afternoon during the hottest year in the hottest decade in recorded history.

Vaillant is known to explore collisions between human ambition and the natural world in his fiction and nonfiction work. His first book, The Golden Spruce, won the Governor General’s Award, and his second nonfiction book, The Tiger, won the B.C. Achievement Award for nonfiction. Fire Weather, which published in 2023, became a number one bestseller in Canada and won the Baillie Gifford Prize for nonfiction. It was also a finalist for the Writers’ Trust nonfiction prize in Canada.

“The idea of addressing climate change by focusing on one of the most consequential fires in North America made this story uniquely captivating and impeccably suited to Vendôme’s taste,” said Philippe Rousselet, founder, chairman and co-CEO of Vendôme Group. “John’s recounting of this pivotal disaster is not only gripping and exhilarating but also portrays a poignant human narrative that prompts us all to contemplate the future of our planet.”

Vaillant commented, “The chance to work with a team that understands—personally and viscerally—the growing threat of climate-driven urban fire is rare and exciting, and the potential of film to convey the intensity of these events is virtually limitless.”