This is the first in a short series of photo essays about the California wildfires. This first post will focus on the fires themselves.
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Fire at night paints with the most unmistakable of palettes.
From Troy to Dresden to Pacific Palisades and Altadena, it has the look of war. It is hard if not impossible to distinguish this fundamental process of Nature from that manifestation of human depravity. And the effects, at least pictorially, are not dissimilar.
There, too, in the scarred and ashen aftermath, the palette is limited, substituting grayscale for red.
The nation now nervously awaits the onset of a different kind of firestorm, the sweeping changes that are the consequences of a 1.4 percent political “landslide.” The force behind the new MAGA regime can be captured, metaphorically, in the call to “burn it all down” — the protections, benefits, norms, rules, checks, balances, buttresses, the girders and crossbeams of both the domestic and global orders. Down to the studs and ashes.
The timing of these terrifying California fires has little or nothing to do with that — and yet they are, if not a foretelling, then a symbol of a destructive process that many fear awaits us. There is no question that the match has been struck — the only question is how strong a wind will fan the flames and can the firefighters achieve containment?
Part 1: The Fire
Does this signal the end of civilization?
Over 12,000 homes and other structures have been consumed by flames.
Firefighters navigate through a hellscape of fire and smoke.
First-responders document the fire.
Many first-responders are working 24-hour shifts.
The power of the flames is hard to imagine.
Fire tornadoes and other powerful phenomena.
https://twitter.com/Ms_Harmony58/status/1878737878601388311
Viewing the fires from above.
At least 14,000 workers are actively involved in responding to the fires.
The ongoing fires in California have consumed over 40,000 acres of land.
