If you, like me, live in an area prone to wildfires, you know the dangers. But wildfires also present some remarkable opportunities to make spectacular images.
I have lived in the small, western Canadian town of Logan Lake for 22 years, and in that time we have had many small fires (sadly, some deliberately set) and two major fires.
In 2021 the Tremont Creek fire burned 63.548 hectares / 157,029 acres of forest. Our town was evacuated, and the flames came within 1,000 feet / 300 meters of our home. Fortunately, not a single home or garden shed was lost thanks to some amazing firefighters.
So, while there are terrific photo opportunities, there are also some ground rules that must be observed – both for your own safety and for the safety of the wildland firefighters.
First, never get close to the fire. It can kill you. Worse, your getting in the way can put the lives of the firefighters in danger.
The second is to never use flash. Not even fill flash, no matter how good an idea it seems at the time. Speaking as an old pilot, a flash can be distracting – and when a pilot is distracted, even momentarily, while flying that close to the ground, it can be disastrous.
Third, if you own a drone, never fly it near a fire, for very obvious reasons. All that said, there are great opportunities for making remarkable images.
One of the great places to start is with the smoke. You need not be close to a fire, for the smoke can travel hundreds of miles, but you do need to be observant.
Above is a shot taken at 05:00, from a motel parking lot, while walking the dog. There were no nearby fires, but the air was thick with wildfire smoke and the rising sun was almost blocked. I couldn't resist the view over parked transport trucks.
I got my start shooting wildfires back in 2009, by making the lead image at the top this article.
We’d been down at our local horse club and noticed a light plume of smoke in the distance. When a lady we knew arrived, we asked her if she knew the cause. “A car fire," she said. So, when we were done, about ten minutes later, we bundled the grandkids (then aged six and eight) and drove up to check out this car fire.
We found the fire, but not the car. As we stood, watching, the Bird-Dog (a small, fast, highly maneuverable plane that directs water bombers and air tankers as they fight the fire) came in for a low pass, with a very loud fire engine’s siren playing through a loudspeaker.
I didn’t know they did that, but it’s a warning to those on the ground that an air tanker or water bomber is coming and to get out of the way!
Moments later, a Conair S-2 Firecat (first photo) came in and dropped his retardant. Luckily I had my camera with me, as I nearly always do. We were about 130 feet / 40 meters from the action, but there was nobody around to tell us otherwise. So we stood and watched, and when the mop-up crew came in by helicopter 20 minutes later we went home!
But the shot is sharp enough that, in an 8x10 print, you can clearly see the pilot flipping switches on the panel above his head.
The fire turned out to be deliberately set and, as the crow flies, only 3.5 miles / 5.5 kilometers from our front door! I was glad to see that one put out.
In May 2018 I was driving home on Tunkwa Lake Road when I came across this lone helicopter, putting out a very small fire. It was equipped with a belly tank, rather than a bucket on a long line, and was flitting between a pond, where he loaded up, and the fire, which was less than 1,000 feet / 330 meters away.
Again he was working solo, and there was nobody on the ground to interfere with, so I stopped, got out and fired away. The light was perfect!
As I write this, we are under an evacuation alert – which means that we must be ready to leave on a moment’s notice. The Guichon (pronounced Gee-shone) Creek wildfire is less than 0.9 miles / 1.5 kilometers from my front door.
Cars are packed with photos, important papers and a few keepsakes. Fuel tanks are full and nobody wants to stray far from home, so there is lots of time to photograph the air tankers and such.
But there is a slight problem. As the air tankers come in to drop their load of retardant, what you’d expect to be a lovely, tack-sharp shot of the plane dropping its bright-red retardant turns out to be anything but.
First of all, to get a decent close-up of the planes you’ll be shooting with a long lens, likely the longest you have (I use a 100-400mm on a Micro Four Thirds camera and it’s nearly always at 400mm, which is 800mm in full frame terms), and the smoke creates a haze that can mute the colors.
Second is that the intense heat rising from the fire below can create hot, turbulent air that distorts everything, much in the same way that objects in the distance look distorted across an expanse of hot desert, or far away on a hot highway.
If you are lucky enough to have the small Air Tractor AT-802 converted crop dusters, you can always go to the nearby lake where they skim the surface to reload their tanks. A small pipe extends into the water, and they scoop up 793 gallons / 3,000 liters of water in just 15 seconds!
You certainly won’t bother any of the firefighters there, and watching six of them come in at once, just eight to ten seconds apart, is really quite spectacular. Just stand on the shore and shoot!
Even if you’re not near a fire, there is still lots to photograph. The moon is a great candidate to shoot through wildfire smoke. If the smoke is really thick, you can try the sun, such as the shot above, taken in the early evening. (Never point your lens at the sun, unless it is extremely dim!)
The texture you see is not “grain” or “noise”, but the particulates of smoke in the air. If possible, wait until the sun is low enough to include a tree, building or something else to give it scale.
Lastly, there are always interesting things to shoot after the fire is out. The landscape often looks more like a moonscape.
If your area has / had evergreen trees, you’ll notice that when the needles burn, they do not turn black nor do they get consumed. They become an odd shade of yellow / orange and, had you told me this before I saw it for myself, I’d never have believed you, but it’s true. We call them “never greens” and the needles finally drop off four to five years later.
Both during and after a wildfire, there's lots to photograph without being a “pain in the patoot” for the firefighters. But honestly? I hope you never have the chance.
You might also like…
Take a look at the best telephoto lenses to get maximum reach for your shots.
