Review: "A Fire Story" by Brian Fies

A Fire Story by Brian Fies
Published March 2019 via Abrams ComicArts
★★★★★

In 2017, fires swept through northern California—and in a matter of hours, Fies and his wife packed up what little they could, fled, and returned home to little more than ashes and rubble.

The earliest version of this story is one that Fies wrote more or less in the moment, perhaps as a way of processing the enormity of the loss. I read the book in the wake of the 2025 LA fires; I have no connection to LA, but it's hard not to see devastation like that on the news and not want to know more. So many people are in the reality of this book right now: dealing with insurance companies that won't pay enough for them to rebuild, worrying about more fires in the same places in the future, being cut out by unscrupulous developers and landowners, mourning the loss of personal history gone to the flames.

The art style here is simple but effective, sometimes longer clips of story and sometimes single-page observations about life after a fire. I assume Fies already had extensive experience sketching himself and his wife; they look very similar in the early versions (included at the end of the book) and the final ones. I particularly like the way he draws his wife (whose job was uniquely fitting to be written about in this book), but there's a focus on minutiae that hits home. You don't always know what's important until it's gone, I suppose. Fies manages to make the book both funny and heart-wrenching, often at the same time, which my gosh is a skill.

Highly recommended to those interested in graphic novels and...well, anyone who's seen wildfires in the news recently.