Terra Flamma: Wildfires at Night

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 California's 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 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 seventy-five 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.