Whom will take the challenge of photographing the effects of the Canadian fires like Turner painted?

Sirius Glass · Jun 10, 2023

Alan Edward Klein said:
How do you know they did it for 65,000 years. I want to see the photos.

Have wall paintings and carving in stone that are so old that the make the Neanderthal cave paintings, 14,000 years old, in southern France and northern Spain look like last weeks graffiti spray painted in the last week. Have you no respect for elders?

Alan Edward Klein · Jun 10, 2023

Sirius Glass said:
Have wall paintings and carving in stone that are so old that the make the Neanderthal cave paintings, 14,000 years old, in southern France and northern Spain look like last weeks graffiti spray painted in the last week. Have you no respect for elders?

At 78, I am an elder.

Sirius Glass · Jun 10, 2023

Alan Edward Klein said:
At 78, I am an elder.

Then respect there elders who are elder than you elders, or mine for that matter. By the way, the Yidinjis [Yidiŋis] elders call me "Their Brother in Los Angeles".

Don_ih · Jun 10, 2023

Sirius Glass said:
But they did not cause the continent to burn down.

Look. Blame the Europeans. Blame climate change. Blame Smokey the Bear. It really doesn't matter a sweet f%$k. Things are on fire right now and all this useless pontificating is like a priest telling you how to perform oral sex.

DREW WILEY · Jun 10, 2023

Native Americans routinely did their own control burns in many areas for millennia. Where I came from, actually growing up with Indians, they'd set the low country on fire just before they migrated to the high country during the summer. That would keep the meadows open for sake of deer or their own use. Lower California scrubland contains a lot of brush genetically engineered to want to burn every forty years or so. Up higher, lightning fires would clean out the older lodgepole pine groves, creating new meadows, and regenerating the cycle. The pine beetles mostly died off during the cold winters. Now winters are warmer, and the only thing that kills off the beetle infestations is catastrophic wildfire. And unwise clearcut logging operations resulting in monoculture forests only made the situation worse, as did the ban on local control burns for sake of improving air quality, which obviously backfired. But the terrain in general is far too steep, remote, and vast to clean up all the downfall.

I've lived through several giant forest fires, fought fires, and now am so sensitized to wood smoke I can't even tolerate fireplaces. I have taken many photo of the results of forest fires. But going out shooting, much less "plein air" (cough, cough) painting them, just sounds nuts to me. Let the newspapers and TV types do that. I've seen fires leap a half mile at a time, and hot ashfall raining down thirty miles from the front. The last fire near my old residence, right in the bottom of the second deepest canyon on the continent, sent up the highest non-volcanic thermal cloud in recorded history (about 75,000 high with four known fire tornadoes going on inside it at the same time). That smoke went clear across the continent to NYC, and some of it even to western Europe.

As for Smokey the Bear's role in all of this.... Well, how come a bear who can't even drive is always the first one to the fire? And the reason Smokey isn't seen anymore is that he's serving a life sentence for serial arson. Turns out, he not only carried a shovel, but a gas can and book of matches. And when I was growing up, that's what certain Forest Service officials would get some local bum to do, often bribing them with nothing more than a pack of cheap beer, since they'd get double pay radioing commands to firefighters on the front afterwards. Nowadays, our forest fires are just too highly investigated to let something like that happen again. Nut case arsonists are another thing entirely. Several of them were arrested in this area last year; and yes, a number of homes were lost.

Sirius Glass · Jun 10, 2023

Don Heisz said:
Look. Blame the Europeans. Blame climate change. Blame Smokey the Bear. It really doesn't matter a sweet f%$k. Things are on fire right now and all this useless pontificating is like a priest telling you how to perform oral sex.

You have completely missed the point that the controlled burns stopped when the Europeans arrived and unbridled growth was allowed to take over. Do some reading of the early European explorers about how there was large spaces between trees and one could ride horses anywhere in the eastern Australia, because there was no brush between the trees and because there were no low limbs needing to be ducked under. They even attributed that to the controlled burn. Shortly after a burn new young plants appear and there is an increase in wildlife in the area [This is well documented in many places.] It is very easy to sit at a keyboard with no knowledge and cast totally inaccurate information. Do some reading and research instead of typing. I have been studying this for over five years. Now go back and sit in the corner.

Australians are now actively working with the Aborigines to learn how to do controlled burns. It turns out the method of controlled burns, the frequency, the size, the time of year during the year for a local burn, all very location by location.

Sirius Glass · Jun 10, 2023

DREW WILEY said:
Native Americans routinely did their own control burns in many areas for millennia. Where I came from, actually growing up with Indians, they'd set the low country on fire just before they migrated to the high country during the summer. That would keep the meadows open for sake of deer or their own use. Lower California scrubland contains a lot of brush genetically engineered to want to burn every forty years or so. Up higher, lightning fires would clean out the older lodgepole pine groves, creating new meadows, and regenerating the cycle. The pine beetles mostly died off during the cold winters. Now winters are warmer, and the only thing that kills off the beetle infestations is catastrophic wildfire. And unwise clearcut logging operations resulting in monoculture forests only made the situation worse, as did the ban on local control burns for sake of improving air quality, which obviously backfired. But the terrain in general is far too steep, remote, and vast to clean up all the downfall.

I've lived through several giant forest fires, fought fires, and now am so sensitized to wood smoke I can't even tolerate fireplaces. I have taken many photo of the results of forest fires. But going out shooting, much less "plein air" (cough, cough) painting them, just sounds nuts to me. Let the newspapers and TV types do that. I've seen fires leap a half mile at a time, and hot ashfall raining down thirty miles from the front. The last fire near my old residence, right in the bottom of the second deepest canyon on the continent, sent up the highest non-volcanic thermal cloud in recorded history (about 75,000 high with four known fire tornadoes going on inside it at the same time). That smoke went clear across the continent to NYC, and some of it even to western Europe.

As for Smokey the Bear's role in all of this.... Well, how come a bear who can't even drive is always the first one to the fire? And the reason Smokey isn't seen anymore is that he's serving a life sentence for serial arson. Turns out, he not only carried a shovel, but a gas can and book of matches. And when I was growing up, that's what certain Forest Service officials would get some local bum to do, often bribing them with nothing more than a pack of cheap beer, since they'd get double pay radioing commands to firefighters on the front afterwards. Nowadays, our forest fires are just too highly investigated to let something like that happen again. Nut case arsonists are another thing entirely. Several of them were arrested in this area last year; and yes, a number of homes were lost.

The Native Americans in Yosemite did controlled burns every few years to keep the Yosemite Valley free of trees, then Smokey Bear of little knowledge stopped that so now one cannot see much of the surround rocks and mountains for the trees.

markjwyatt · Jun 10, 2023

I got some shots after (and a few during) the Blue Ridge fires of 2020 (SoCal)

Blue Ridge Fire 2020

Explore this photo album by Mark Wyatt on Flickr!

www.flickr.com

DREW WILEY · Jun 10, 2023

Sirius - they've had fires in Yos Valley in recent years too. But if the trees hadn't grown tall, there would be nothing to hide all the damn development in the Valley. After all, it's basically a city of 30,000 people during peak season. Even has its own little jail. I 4-wheeled thru the snow a month ago, got there at 6AM under perhaps the last of the classic winter-look conditions, then got out of Dodge about 1:00 once the lodge tourists finally woke up, and tour buses started arriving through the lower route up the Merced River. Spent the next three nights in total solitude the next three nights elsewhere. No artificial lights at night, no sounds but birds, coyotes, and waterfalls.

As far as that incredible burn up the canyon from my former property, I visited it in May two years ago. From across the canyon it looked like 20 thermonuclear bombs had gone off; but the actual amount of cumulative energy released was even greater! But closer in everything was going insane with rare wildflowers. Birds everywhere taking advantage of the charred peeling bark to get insects. Juvenile tree squirrels running around. An abundance of several frog species croaking in the streams. And big green meadows with huge ancient oak trees untouched. The fire moved so swiftly through the dead pines that it seemingly created its own fire break around anything green. Most of that area is uninhabited; but there are resorts and residents on one of the ridges, and most of that was utterly wiped out. An old family friend who was the head of the nearest Indian Res died of a heart attack trying to get out. His mother was a famous basket-maker with many examples in the Smithsonian.

The young couple who bought my place were camped up at the road's end and were trapped for a week. A big military chopper finally got in. The wife was sent to the hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation. But they'd done an excellent job protecting both the house and his business from fire risk.

4season · Jun 10, 2023

Did you mean J.M.W Turner?

I don't think I've ever witnessed light of the sort depicted by Turner, or Alfred Bierstadt for that matter. Elements of it, sure, but not in such theatrical combinations.

Forest fires sometimes create hazy pink or orange air, but when it's really bad, I'll stay indoors.

A photo taken by me (using Kodak Disc Camera) during the time of the 1988 fire at Yellowstone National Park. No shafts of golden light bursting through black clouds here. Had there been storm activity, it likely would have cleared the air.

koraks · Jun 11, 2023

Being as ugly as it is in several ways, we're locking this post.

People are free to try again and debate the artistic implications of forest fires without all the political discussion and personal insults.

Whom will take the challenge of photographing the effects of the Canadian fires like Turner painted?

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