The Death of Photojournalism, in full color. Me Backpedalling Big Time.

[Vaughn]

The fires out here in California are terrible...and I find that many of the still images I am seeing of fires here and elsewhere are just as terrible, from a photojournalistic viewpoint.

Way too much image manipulation. It is as if the media has decided the hell with reality (and photojounalisms ethics) and goes with what will draw the viewers' eyes to their news feed.

I have fought a few wildland fires and have a good idea of what they look like.

Edited to add -- sorry for the drama of the Post title, but I think I will keep it up there. Photojournalism is in a lot more trouble than moving a slider in Photoshop.

 

[pentaxuser]

We are getting small excerpts from these fires on the BBC now. They look as if they represent reality but that's from the perspective of someone from a country, in my case the U.K., where such things are really unknown. It must be a nightmare for residents.

pentaxuser

 

[wiltw]

Could you provide us with a few links, with your comments about what manipuaiton of the photo you think has been done?

 

[Vaughn]

The videos do more closely represent reality of the moment and place. I am speaking of some of the still images we are seeing. Sort of along the lines of images in the press of the latest comet passing by earlier in the month...it is cool to the the comet represented by images that our limited eyes will never see, but I would prefer to see something along the lines of the words that accompany Hubble images -- that the colors, etc are all computer generated and that space does not really look like that...perhaps, "An artist rendering of the Santa Cruz fires".

 

[Vaughn]

A little research -- sorry, a little late.

A quick gander over some CA new agencies published still images...and they are doing a good job. I was distracted by click-bait images and others by non-journalists.

 

[wiltw]

Yeah, the passing comet photos were very deceitful, as if you could look up in the sky with a good telephoto and shoot similar shots.

Relative to the fires, I wish there were some photos taken high in the sky of the rising smoke plumes over fires like LNU and SCU and CZU complexes. Two of these fires are currently rated the #2 and #3 fires in all of CA recorded fire history!

The Purple air quality map makes it very apparent that almost all of CA is under a very unhealthy fog of smoke from North to South and from West to East, about the only good places for fresh are at 3pm 8/22 are along the coast of the Pacific Ocean!

 

[wiltw]

I did find a satellite photo taken 2 days ago, of the entire state and the smoke plume, with color overlay showing the locations and magnitude of fire areas.

https://scitechdaily.com/1200-mile-...-in-these-nasa-terra-images-of-the-wildfires/

 

[Colin Corneau]

I've been seeing plenty of images from wildfires here in Canada, due north from you a few hours in British Columbia.

They've been nightmarish but nothing drastically manipulated or obviously digitally created. It's not unusual, sadly, for outlets gutted by cutbacks to rely on reader submitted content, and in that case who the hell knows.

 

[MattKing]

Here is an example of the sort of images we are seeing here: https://www.citynews1130.com/2020/08/22/bc-wildfire-winds-fail-fuel-growth/
From that story:

 

[Vaughn]

From the sat. image, I'm in the middle of everything, tho scale is everything and we got ocean and a damp climate on one side. I have not heard from my son lately (today), so he might be off to firecamp (CalFire) -- part of the LNU complex. Not a firefighter, but firecamps have been burnt over or have had to move real fast.

Unfortunately, with the global warming trend, these burnt slopes will tend not to come back as forest for long awhile.

One of the most interesting fire images I have seen was an aerial image taken in 1965 along the Humboldt coast. The 1964 Christmas Flood has sent whole towns, redwood mills and their log decks down to the ocean. They took cats down to all the beaches and piled up the debris and torched them all off to keep the logs from re-floating and being navigation hazards. The image was looking up the coast and far to the horizon were piles burning on the beaches with the smoke from each huge pile making parallel lines 10 or 15 miles eastward.

And I should not have looked at CalFire's fire map. As with many people, it looks like two of the most special places in this world to me are burning. Just two small spots on the globe, not too far from each other, deep in the Yolla Bolly Mountains. They'll survive...as sour grapes, I may not be in good enough condition to revisit them anyway...but I would have tried (and still might). Perhaps this tree is still there.

 

[wiltw]

Fire in the CZU complex has burned Big Basin State Park. About the redwoods there

"Big Basin is California's oldest state park and home to the largest continuous stand of ancient coast redwoods south of San Francisco. Some of the giant redwoods there are more than 50 feet around and as tall as the Statue of Liberty. At 1,000 to 1,800 years old and possible more, some may predate the Roman Empire."
​

The rangers assigned to Big Basin have thus far been unable to assess the status of their largest and oldest stands of redwoods.

 

[Ariston]

Is it true that they won't let the power companies clear the underbrush out from under the power lines there? Why are there so many fires out that way?

 

[wyofilm]

I believe many of the current, worst fires were caused by lightning.

Californians, please correct me if I am wrong, but the rainy season during the winter months creates a lot of ground fuel (grass, brush, etc.) that then dries out during the hot dry summer months. That coupled with steep topography, strong afternoon winds, and considerable wildland/urban interface makes California fire seasons difficult.

 

[wiltw]

Is it true that they won't let the power companies clear the underbrush out from under the power lines there? Why are there so many fires out that way?

Last weekend, a tropical storm remnant (without much rain) moved up from Baja California and got trapped over Northern California by a massive high pressure region. There were over 11000 lightning strkes, which resulted in over 350 fires! Unfortunately, another set of thunderstorms is expected to come in this next Sunday thru Tuesday, bringing fears of even more fires! Lightning induced fires in wlderness areas are not uncommon in CA, just not 350 of them all at once! There is not enough manpower and equipment to deal with all the fires and bring them under control somewhat rapidly. They are bringing in crews from other states and even from other countries, an an effort to fight the many fires. Not unllike CA sending crews to Australia to fight their massive wildfires.

The issue is not underbrush under power lines...the issue is simply wilderness with trees and undergrowth from hundreds and even thousands of years of Nature. Big Basin State Park actually has a program of controlled burns to keep down the amount of scrub. And unlike our President's misunderstanding of nature, you cannot have people come in to unaccessible geography to rake the leaves. The very largest fire areas are in hilly terrain, not out of flat ground. And fires do burn incredibly fast acrossed flat ground that has the browned grasses of summer (CA has about 5 DRY MONTHS every summer, with little to no rain, unlike many other parts of the world...hence its name 'The Golden State' because the hills have grasses that all turn brown. Wyofilm is correct in his understanding of what happens.

 

[wyofilm]

I am a local firefighter in western Wyoming. Unfortunately, for Californians, so much of our wildland trainings come from study of California fires. California has contributed more than its fair share to understanding wildland fires - and particularly the wildland/urban interface.

 

[Ariston]

Last weekend, a tropical storm remnant (without much rain) moved up from Baja California and got trapped over Northern California by a massive high pressure region. There were over 11000 lightning strkes, which resulted in over 350 fires! Unforunately, another set of thunderstorms is expected to come in this next Sunday thru Tuesday, bringing fears of even more fires! Lightning induced fires in wlderness areas are not uncommon in CA, just not 350 of them all at once! There is not enough manpower and equipment to deal with all the fires and bring them under control somewhat rapidly. They are bringing in crews from other states and even from other countries, an an effort to fight the many fires. Not unllike CA sending crews to Australia to fight their massive wildfires.

The issue is not underbrish inder power lines...the issue is simply wilderness with trees and undergrowth from hundreds and even thousands of years of Nature. Big Basin State Park actually has a program of controlled burns to keep down the amount of scrub. And unlike our President's misunderstanding of nature, you cannot have people come in to unaccessible geography to rake the leaves. The very largest fire areas are in hilly terrain, not out of flat ground. And fires do burn incredibly fast acrossed flat ground that has the browned grasses of summer (CA has about 5 DRY MONTHS every summer, with little to no rain, unlike many other parts of the world...hence its name 'The Golden State' because the hills have grasses that all turn brown. Wyofilm is correct in his understanding of what happens.

Please don't interject politics. I Google'd the driest states, and CA didn't even come up in the top ten, so I am genuinely interested what the problem is. Saying there are way more storms (lightning), but the state is too dry, is even more confusing.

Wyofilm's explanation makes some sense. Thank you wyofilm.

 

[wiltw]

I am a local firefighter in western Wyoming. Unfortunately, for Californians, so much of our wildland trainings come from study of California fires. California has contributed more than its fair share to understanding wildland fires - and particularly the wildland/urban interface.

Thank you, and all rural firefighters, for your service!

 

[wiltw]

Please don't interject politics.

I apologize that I referred to a criticism of CA in its failure to rake the leaves...a couple years ago, and again this year.

 

[wy2l]

Here's one of my favorites, from 2015, from the Rough Fire in Kings Canyon National Park (California)
Fire took place in one of the most rugged canyons in the United States. Brutal conditions.

kris

 

[Vaughn]

I apologize that I referred to a criticism of CA in its failure to rake the leaves...a couple years ago, and again this year.

Not to mention that almost 60% of CA forest land is under federal ownership. US Forest Service is greatly underfunded. The number of USFS fire fighters and fire stations has dropped tremendously.

I mentioned that two important spots to me in the Yolla Bollys are burning. This is a wilderness area between Hwy 101 and Hwy 5 in northern CA. When I was working there (USFS) I got dropped off with a couple others by a chopper doing a one-rail, "Out you go!" landing on a several acre lightning strike in the middle of nowhere. The smoke got bad so that the chopper could not bring out water (drinking or otherwise) and or back-up for a long while. Headwaters for a few rivers, this is up or down country...and that is true all down the coastal mountains.

Only so many helicopters and airtankers in the air in the State. The day before the city of Santa Rosa burnt down to the south of us, we had a fire here outside of town. One 4-engine air-tanker, a smaller prop and two jet-powered airtankers jumped on that fire...along with ground crews. That and the wind calming down later got it controlled. If our fire had hit the day after -- the same day the outskirts of Santa Rosa was burning, those air resources would not have been available and we would have lost houses. Now -- too much happening at once with reduced resources.

We had a dry winter, and most our spring rains came late -- after the grasses had started to flower. This means that there was not as much grass growth (thus fuel) than if the rains had come earlier. At this point a minor detail, but there is not a heavy grass load this summer -- just its normal large amount.

 

[Vaughn]

Please don't interject politics. I Google'd the driest states, and CA didn't even come up in the top ten...

The entire Los Angeles Basin is officially a desert (<10" per year). The state is too big for the the "top ten driest states" list to be significant (averaging Death Valley NP with Redwood NP would come out slightly dry). The LA Basin is the classic case study for fire-urban interface...and as I said, in a desert.

Before TV, it was a thing to go up to Pasadena and other towns next to the San Gabriel Mountains and watch them burn -- in patches usually, stopped from spreading by previously burnt ground.

Then you have the Sierra Nevada rain shadow, making east of those mountains pretty dry, while on the other 'wet' side, it is in the 100+ temps in the foothills with grass giving way to oaks giving way to drought killed conifers.

Actually, I am kinda of surprised we did not make the top ten!

 

[Patrick Robert James]

Please don't interject politics. I Google'd the driest states, and CA didn't even come up in the top ten, so I am genuinely interested what the problem is. Saying there are way more storms (lightning), but the state is too dry, is even more confusing.

Wyofilm's explanation makes some sense. Thank you wyofilm.

California is the driest state, dryer even than Nevada, in the summer, which is where the problem lies. If it was dry all year there wouldn't be many fires at all.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Sadly, this is the new normal. After a fairly quiet forest fire season, we now find ourselves

We are getting small excerpts from these fires on the BBC now. They look as if they represent reality but that's from the perspective of someone from a country, in my case the U.K., where such things are really unknown. It must be a nightmare for residents.

pentaxuser

I'll bet you don't get any news about wildfires here in BC...We have our share up here. Screen shot from BC Wildfire app on my phone:

 

[Vaughn]

I do when your smoke heads towards my sisters (one in east and one in west Washington.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

I do when your smoke heads towards my sisters (one in east and one in west Washington.

We often get Washington State smoke up here, too. A few years ago, it was brutal!