10 years after a 17,000 acre lightening sparked fire. The view was from my campsite. In the dry Colorado mountains, it takes a long time to regrow a burned forest.
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Images like these are super humbling. I love the way that you’re telling a story about this place with your photography. Documentation and story telling are some of the hardest things to do when it comes to landscape photography and this does it well. Reminds me of a part of the Smoky Mountains that hasn’t recovered from a fire.
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Yes, I agree with @David_Johnston , the story this image tells is indeed humbling. I have paddled through many burns and this August my wife and I will paddling through some areas that were ravaged by fire just last summer (hopefully we will not also find ourselves in the midst of a blaze). But your telling of this story is elegant and without great fanfare. The subdued colour gives the image added strength by both underplaying and accentuating the vastness of the scene. This is image has a Burtynsky-like sense - both strikingly beautiful and a horrifying indictment. People often say, well it was a forest fire so, it is a natural event and good for the health of the forest. This is true. But what most people don’t realize is that global climate change has had an enormous impact on these events for two reasons. The first is that the pests that have migrated due to climate change and against which the forest has little defence, cause enough damage that the forest becomes like a tinder box (this is particularly true in the northern boreal where I do most of my paddling). The second is that with climate change our atmosphere has changed. It is estimated that a 1 degree rise in celsius can increase lightning strikes by between 12 and 20%. It breaks my heart. Thank you for this wonderful and powerful image.
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Wow – that is heart-rending devastation, as far as you can see. Excellently captured with the giant massif looking on. And it is shocking that it is this bare after 10 years. Excellent points by @Kerry_Gordon about the climate disaster. I think the point of no return was about 1950.
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David, Kerry & Diane, thank you for your comments. Yes, the extent, complete devastation, and lack of significant recovery was shocking. This was my first visit to the area. Initially, I was sad that I had not seen it before the fire, but if I had, the sense of loss would have been worse. Never the less, the panorama from my campsite was still stunningly beautiful. As long as our western drought continues, I doubt there will be much change seen over the next several decades.