These fires were not an infestation that had to be stopped, an illness in my dreams. They were the image of my own life. I myself was burning my life away. I was burning bridges, memories, relationships. I was wrecking my life, and each night my dreams showed me the results. This was my own diseased world.

James Elkins

Weak in Comparison to Dreams

+he's an unreliable narrator, masquerading as an expert on the psychology of animals in zoos, yet his dreams are showing him the burning world and the fire of his own mind. The reader knows before the narrator realizes, on page 396.