John Vaillant’s Fire Weather: A True Story From a Hotter World has won the Baillie Gifford Prize, the U.K. literary award given annually to an outstanding work of nonfiction.

Vaillant’s book, published in the U.S. in June by Knopf, considers how climate change has led to an increase in wildfires, focusing on the 2016 fire in Fort McMurray, Canada, that destroyed more than 2,000 houses and buildings. A critic for Kirkus called the book, which was also a finalist for the National Book Award, “a timely, well-written work of climate change reportage.”

Frederick Studemann, the chair of judges for the award, said in a statement, “Fire Weather brings together a series of harrowing human stories with science and geo-economics, in an extraordinary and elegantly rendered account of a terrifying climate disaster that engulfed a community and industry, underscoring our toxic relationship with fossil fuels. Moving back and forth in time, across subjects, and from the particular to the global, this meticulously researched, thrillingly told book forces readers to engage with one of the most urgent issues of our time.”

Vaillant reacted to his win on X, formerly known as Twitter, writing, “An extraordinary honour from the land of my mother tongue.”

The Baillie Gifford Prize was established in 1998 as the Samuel Johnson Prize. Past winners include James Shapiro for A Year in the Life of Shakespeare: 1599and Katherine Rundell for Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne.

Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.