From the towering pines of Shasta Trinity National Forest, to the chaparral scrub of San Diego’s Mexican border, to Yosemite and the Western Sierras, trained wildland firefighter and photojournalist Stuart Palley documents California’s raging wildfires and the forces behind them during the state’s worst fire season in modern history. The dramatic images, a half decade in the making, capture the
simultaneous beauty and destruction that wildfires bring as fire seasons
get longer and more deadly, expensive, and destructive.
In the wake of
Californias record-breaking series of wildfires in 2017, the
images encompass five fire seasons and 45 fires. They are presented chronologically
and culminate with the wine country fire siege that devastated Sonoma and Napa Counties in October 2017 and the Thomas Fire in Southern California, the largest in recorded state history. This timely book defines the state’s drought and urban sprawl challenges, drawing a broader picture of
global warming and its acute effects worldwide.Stuart PalleyStuart Palley is a Southern California native with a background in photojournalism and history. He is a recognized expert on nighttime photography and has documented roughly 75 fires in five years, trained as a wildland firefighter, and traveled from the US/Mexico border in San Diego to the Shasta Trinity National Forest near Oregon to make the book’s images.110 color imagesWildfires at Night110 color images