Christine Hansen uses the concept of deep time to challenge the idea that never-before-witnessed events are unprecedented. Using the case of a massive firestorm in 2009 in southeast Australia, she calls into question the shallow temporal frames through which deep time environmental phenomena are understood in Australian settler culture and offers an insight into often unnoticed ways in which contemporary society struggles with the colonial legacy.

This book packs into one slender volume a sweeping tale of fire, and humanity’s interactions with fire, from prehistory to the dawn of the twenty-first century.