Episode 1

Written by Philip Connor. Abridged by Jane Marshall.

For nearly a decade, Philip Connors has spent half of each year in a 7 foot by 7 foot room at the top of a tower, on top of a mountain, alone in millions of acres of remote American wilderness. His job: to look for wildfires.

Capturing the wonder and grandeur of this most unusual job and place, Fire Season evokes both the eerie pleasure of solitude and the majesty, might and beauty of untamed fire at its wildest. Connors' time on the peak is filled with drama - there are fires large and small; spectacular midnight lightning storms and silent mornings awakening above the clouds; surprise encounters with smokejumpers and black bears. Filled with Connors' heartfelt reflections on our place in the wild, Fire Season is an instant modern classic: a remarkable memoir that is at once a homage to the beauty of nature, the blessings of solitude, and the freedom of the independent spirit.

Read by Kerry Shale

Produced by Jane Marshall
A Jane Marshall Production for BBC Radio 4.