by Tom Burton
As a kid growing up in northern California, Kent Porter would sometimes hop on his bike and take a camera with him to photograph wildfires in the area. Fires like these have always happened there, and decades later Porter still follows them with his cameras.
Over the years the weather has changed. Winds blow hot and dry, and vegetation grows fast and then dries out quickly. As a staff photographer with the Press-Democrat in Santa Rosa, California, Porter has had a busy run these past few years covering fires.
“We live in a tinderbox all year long now,” Porter said. “It’s a new beast out here.”
Fires that in the past would take weeks to burn through a region are now moving at terrifying rates, destroying the same amount of acreage in just hours. The Hanly Fire in 1964 in Sonoma, Napa and Lake counties took a week to burn through. The Tubbs Fire last October in the same area took eight hours to burn the same area.
Porter said the winds in these fires are so strong that not only embers but burning pine cones and small branches are flying in the air.
For photojournalists covering wildfires, it is a balance of caution, experience and persistence to succeed while still being safe.
Noah Berger, an independent photographer who contracts with the San Francisco Chronicle, The Associated Press, Reuters and others, has also covered his share of wildfires. He worries about safety and getting the best photos possible and guides all those decisions through his personal priorities list.
First priority: Don’t get in the way of the firefighters.
Second priority: Residents, their safety and their property.
Third priority: The journalist and the pictures.
“We have a right to be there,” Berger said, but “we’re not the story.”
The veterans carry safety gear with them throughout fire season. Fire-resistant suits with Nomex fibers are standard, along with helmets, boots and gloves. Masks are used by many photographers, often the face-sealing N95 respirator designed to filter at least 95 percent of the airborne particles. Most journalists also attend fire safety courses given by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, also known as CalFire.
Independent photographers can spend several hundred dollars on this gear. Staffers, such as Marcus Yam of the Los Angeles Times, have company-provided gear. He even carries a second suit with him in case he is quickly paired with another journalist who doesn’t have a fire suit.
Yam is relatively new to wildfire coverage, having only been covering them for the past few years.
He has benefited from the wisdom of other photographers who have been generously sharing their tips, even as they were all heading into fire zones.
“The basic edict they taught me was always have an escape plan. Always,” Yam said. “In a moment of panic, you may not know where to run. That needs to be predetermined.”
Yam found himself using that strategy covering the Thomas Fire near Ventura, California last December. He had reasoned, based on wind patterns, that a fire in Santa Paula would eventually burn into Ventura. He drove there and ended up at Grant Park, a hilltop overlook. Ten minutes later, the fast-moving fire had reached there.
Fire was jumping houses, and people were scrambling to evacuate. Yam told himself he would follow the last person out. His escape route was simple to choose. There was only one street in and one street out.
He waited about a minute too long, by his estimation. He drove past a wall of fire and could feel the heat even inside the car as he left.
He cruised through Ventura, ending up in the foothills where a mansion was burning and there were other media on site. Yam noticed a palm tree blazing at another house, and as he approached, he heard men screaming and shouting.
Five young men, friends from high school, were using hoses to wet the roof of the house to save it from the fire. They had seen the fires from a distance and come to help. It was not even their house.
Yam said the scene was apocalyptic and dark. Even with his camera set at 3200 ISO, the exposure was 1/15 of a second. Large embers were being blown about and burned his Nomex jacket, and he was soaked by water blasted into the air from the hoses.
Getting close to wildfires is risky, and the most recent fire behavior is making coverage more dangerous. Some veteran photographers recommend firefighter-level training before going into the most active scenes.
“This stuff is killing firefighters who are doing it professionally,” said Stuart Palley, a Los Angeles-based independent photographer who works with the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, ABC News and others.
In addition to investing in fire-safety gear and the basic safety course, Palley has gone through additional training to get an Incident Qualification Card, commonly known as a Red Card. The tests given through the National Wildfire Coordinating Group certify a person’s training and experience in firefighting. It is designed to make it easier for firefighters traveling from other areas to integrate with the local crews.
Palley took a week of field training in addition to online courses for the course. He also took the “pack test,” a 3-mile hike carrying a 45-pound pack that must be completed within 45 minutes.
With this preparation, it is easier to concentrate on photography because he can also work knowing the mindset of a firefighter, Palley said. He also gains respect from the firefighters and is focused first on not impeding their work.
For him, covering fires is similar to a military embed, and he is working very closely with the crews. While some might worry about being too close and “going native,” Palley said he is able to handle the balance.
“You can still get a fair and independent story,” he said.
Hilary Swift had no experience covering wildfires but knew Ventura County very well. She graduated the Brooks Institute, the art college based in Ventura that closed in 2016. She got a text in early December from her best friend who lives there now, letting Swift know that she was evacuating because of the expanding Thomas Fire.
Within hours, Swift let her home in Brooklyn, New York, and was on her way to Ventura. She is a frequent contributor to The New York Times, which had her assigned by the time she landed in California.
Though she hadn’t covered wildfires before, she knew from living in California that they are dangerous. Working on her knowledge, she opted not to get too close.
“Too often I see young, unexperienced photographers running into situations they’re not prepared for,” Swift said. “I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t done it in my past, but I didn’t want to put myself, the firefighters and potentially other people in danger.”
She touched base with her former professors from the Brooks Institute, and one lent her a fire jacket. They also offered advice, as did photographers Mischa Lopiano and Patrick Fallon. She also learned that, in addition to fire safety and staying out of the way of firefighters, photographers covering the wildfires should be aware there is a lot of poison oak in the California woods.
Though she has recent experience covering major breaking news events, this one was different. Swift feels a personal debt to Ventura, a place where she learned photography and where many of her closest friends still live. Four of those friends lost homes in the Thomas Fire.
“After spending 2017 jumping from hurricane aftermath in Houston and U.S. Virgin Islands to Las Vegas after the shootings, it felt strange to be brought back to this place that I love while it was in crisis,” Swift said.
There are few women covering wildfires, and Swift found she often stood out. She had rented a minivan – the cheapest car and not one she’d recommend for covering wildfires. At checkpoints, the first response was to try to turn her around, but her press pass helped her get through.
“I think as a youngish woman people constantly underestimate or overly explain things to you, which can be really frustrating,” Swift said. “But you can also learn to use it to your advantage.”
The indications are that the wildfires will continue to get worse. California fires are a unique story because state law allows journalists to be as close as the firefighters to the fires, and as close to the danger.
Porter said he and his colleagues at the Press-Democrat have done an excellent job covering the fires these last few years. They are experts in reading the factors that combine to create raging wildfires: humidity, heat, winds that are often hurricane-force and the terrain. These fires are also regularly threatening homes.
For Porter, his experience covers more than three decades. His 18-year-old son is training to be a firefighter. But these wildfires are changing and becoming more dangerous.
“We’ve had to learn a little more about what fire can do,” Porter said. “I’m still scared of them, but I know more about them than I did three years ago.”
