Forest fires can happen naturally, but the truth is that people cause them, too, often to terrible consequences. Readers learn how they start in both cases as well as how these fires spread, the damage they cause the environment, and how firefighters fight them on the ground and in the air. Case studies of recent forest fires, including the 2016 fires in California, provide readers with real-life examples to encourage connections between the book's STEM content and social studies concepts of conservation, community engagement, and the huge project of cleaning up a natural disaster like a forest fire.