Lyle Swesey sits in a lawn chair across the street from his burned-down home on Creekside Place in Auburn, Calif., Sunday, Aug. 30, as a helicopter drops water on hot spots. Photograph by Bryan Patrick, The Sacramento Bee
More pictures from The Sacramento Bee
A Los Angeles County fire helicopter drops retardant on a hot spot during a wildfire, Aug. 28, in the Rolling Hills section of Rancho Palos Verdes. Photograph by Mark J. Terrill, AP
More pictures from Pixcetera/AOL News
(Thanks to G.S. Gass)
Featured Comment by Richard Ripley: "Thanks for posting these links to the photos of the Station Fire. I live fairly near the fires and many of the places I hike and photograph are either in flames or have burned.
"The Angeles National Forest has been my playground for many years and though I understand this is the natural progression of things, I certainly feel for the homeowners who have lost homes or are in danger of losing homes. Even more I feel for the brave firefighters who lost their lives.
"As I write this, helicopters are churning overhead. I'm sure many of my favorite hiking and photographing areas are now blackened which of course is upsetting. Thanks again for sharing the photos."
Wow, that first photograph is fantastic and somewhat epic in a frozen kind of way.
Posted by: Chris | Tuesday, 01 September 2009 at 01:33 AM
That first image of Mr. Swesey is - breathtaking. It's worth going to the full photo essay just to see large, but many other images there are equally as awesome. Thanks for the link.
(Oh - since this post has 0 comments yet a featured comment, it means you can see the future. So, please tell us now what's coming on 9/9/9 from Leica? :))
Posted by: Ludovic | Tuesday, 01 September 2009 at 04:00 AM
Why do people continue to flock to California, especially southern California? Frequent fires, mudslides, earthquakes, over-crowding, unbelievable traffic, oppressive taxation and regulation, etc. On the other hand, I know there are people who don't understand why I would want to live in a tiny town in NC, but I swear, I don't get the attraction of southern CA.
Posted by: John Roberts | Tuesday, 01 September 2009 at 05:35 AM
It just isn't California's year, is it?
Posted by: James McDermott | Tuesday, 01 September 2009 at 09:36 AM
Those pictures are amazing.
I couldn't help but notice on the first picture there's a drop of sensor dust. I think that's the first time I've ever seen that in a professional picture.
Posted by: Paul McEvoy | Tuesday, 01 September 2009 at 09:37 AM
There are more photographs here: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-bigpicturefire,0,5985825.htmlstory from the LA Times.
Posted by: Mark | Tuesday, 01 September 2009 at 10:07 AM
Auburn is right up the road from me. Having lived in this state for 46 years, we've come to learn California is a dangerous place, as well as a paradise.
Posted by: Paul W. Luscher | Tuesday, 01 September 2009 at 11:27 AM
There is also a timelapse of the wildfires which is strangely mesmerising.
http://www.brandonriza.com/Video/HTML/ZeroPercentContained.html
Posted by: Mark | Tuesday, 01 September 2009 at 11:58 AM
Much of California is what's known as chaparral, i.e. a biome that achieves equilibrium *by periodically burning*. So the ecology of that region is actually dependent on frequent fires, yet for some reason we act surprised that wildfires sweep through every year.
Of course, not everyone chooses where they live and it's awful for those caught up in this mess. But if you move out there because you have dreamed of owning a home out in the wilderness, you should know the risks beforehand. It's sorta like moving out to Florida to own beachfront property and not realizing that there were hurricanes. Or moving to Minnesota to avoid the summer heat only to be shocked by the brutal winters. Or moving to Manhattan because you saw Sex and the City and then complaining that there's nowhere to park.
Posted by: Jimmy W. | Tuesday, 01 September 2009 at 01:06 PM
Just checked, and as of 10:25 AM, the Mt. Wilson observatories are still OK. That's the property I'm worried about. All the communications towers the newsies are fretting about ... they're just hardware and they'll be replaced because they make beaucoup bucks for their masters.
pax / Ctein
Posted by: ctein | Tuesday, 01 September 2009 at 01:29 PM
Dear John,
It's a "selective-misperception-combined-with-unfamiliarity" thing. California is BIG. It's got three times the land area of North Carolina. It only has four times the population, though, so the overall population density isn't significantly higher than North Carolina. Lots of states have much higher or lower densities. Nevada has 1/6 the population density, Texas has half the population density, and Massachusetts has three times the population density.
All of these states are still predominantly rural area. Massachusetts and California are a lot like North Carolina; there are huge numbers of people live along the coasts, and the rest of the state is underpopulated. Why do people like living in urban clusters? Who knows? But it's to your advantage. If they didn't, the population density where you live would be twice as high.
As for the natural disaster rate, even in high risk areas, it's not any riskier per capita than living elsewhere in the country. E.g., people on the Least Coast get major hurricanes at least as often as we on the Left Coast get major earthquakes. I live in what is considered an extremely high risk area. In the past 50 years has been one major quake. There's a two thirds chance of another major quake in the next 30 years.
So, different people put up with different risks. People in the Midwest by and large don't have to deal with hurricanes or earthquakes (well, not very often). But they get regular thunderstorms, hail storms, tornadoes, and blizzards. Each of those is far less destructive than a major earthquake or hurricane... but they get them a lot more often.
So it's just a case of choosing your poison.
As for the overtaxation bit, that's a philosophical choice but not an economic one. Turns out that if you look at states all over the country and analyze the cost of external services (scaled to the median income of the state) you find out that people pay about the same for the same services everywhere. Sometimes it's in state taxes, sometimes it's in property taxes, sometimes it's in sales taxes, sometimes it's in usage fees. You get to decide what philosophically suits you the best, but if you want the service, you end up paying for it. Of course, you can also choose your locale based on how much of those services you want. It happens that Californians, collectively, like a lot of them.
(Please, no libertarian (or liberal) rants in response. As I said, it's a philosophical choice, and I'm not telling readers what choice they should make.)
~ pax \ Ctein
[ Please excuse any word-salad. MacSpeech in training! ]
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-- Ctein's Online Gallery http://ctein.com
-- Digital Restorations http://photo-repair.com
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Posted by: ctein | Tuesday, 01 September 2009 at 05:36 PM
When I saw these pictures I thought 'wow!' and I can see that others are equally impressed by them. Then I realised I was appreciating the quality of the pictures and overlooking the fact that these were scenes from a disaster. I remember when Salgado's 'Africa' came out and we all salivated over the quality of the images, but actually many of them were heart rendingly sad and awful. I forget which WWII photographer gave up war photography when he found himself composing the best shot of heaps of bodies at a just liberated concentration camp and not seeing what was really in front of him. Truth is the beauty of the image can transcend the scene, if we are not careful that is.
Posted by: Simon, Norfolk UK | Wednesday, 02 September 2009 at 01:22 PM