Manjula Martin’s ‘The Last Fire Season’ Reflects on Living with Wildfire

When Manjula Martin fled her West Sonoma home in the summer of 2020 with wildfire raging around her, she realized her go bag was packed for an apocalypse, not a sleepover. She had flashlights, but no toothbrush. Books, but no shampoo. In her debut memoir, “The Last Fire Season,” Martin reflects on how Californians are simultaneously preparing for the end of the world, while also going about their day-to-day lives. “I had little capacity to navigate the everyday experience of living inside a slow decline,” she writes. We talk to Martin about living life in the Pyrocene, the age of fire.