Inmate firefighters build a containment line ahead of the Butte Fire

Rich Pedroncelli, American

Inmate firefighters build a containment line ahead of the Butte Fire, 2015

Two men near Sheep Ranch, California, use rakes to construct a containment line ahead of an approaching wildfire. The orange of their equipment echoes that of threatening flames and dusky atmospherics that surround them. As climate change makes wildfires increasingly frequent, firefighters are called upon more often. In addition to paid professional firefighters, the State of California exploits incarcerated people for their labor as firefighters, paying only $1 per hour and saving the state $100 million annually. In this context, firefighting suits replace jumpsuits, masking the identities of these men and giving them the appearance that they are just other firefighters. These suits also have the effect of masking gross injustice, firefighters who have little, if any, choice in using their labor for these purposes, in horribly dangerous environments, and make pitiful wages doing it. Label by Morgan Brittain

Photograph

Andy Holzman, American

Photograph

This photography work captures farmworkers working in Camarillo, a small city in southern California, under the sky full of smoke from the wildfire event. Being present no matter how severe the weather would be, farmworkers were told that they are expected to stay and continue their work, and will be fired if they were to leave during the fire. They not only do not have the resources to evacuate with their property, but also do not have the access to protection against the disaster, such as facemasks. This demonstrates the injustice that the marginalized communities experience during disaster like the California wildfire. Label by Yifei He

This photo shows farmworkers in a field with a dark smokey sky above them. The glow of flames can be seen through the smoke poking out behind mountains. This image shows the ways in which vulnerable people are put into danger by forest fires. The landscape does not look like it should contain people. The smoke in the sky is heavy and the distant flames evoke a sense of dread. One would expect to see this sky over a barren landscape with all life having fled for safety. Instead at the bottom of the photo is a green field where about a dozen people continue to work. Label by Becca Gurysh

The Atlas Fire

Stuart Palley, American

The Atlas Fire, 2017

This photograph is taken from photographer Stuart Palley’s book, Terra Flamma: Wildfires at Night in which Palley depicts the California wildfires and their subsequent effects through photographs. This image in particular is of the The Atlas Fire which burned over 25,000 acres of land in Napa and Solano counties in California in 2017. The colors of the photograph—the yellows and greens of the lit-up vegetation juxtaposed against the reds and oranges of the blaze—contrast sharply, giving the image an almost surreal quality. The illumination produced by the fire in the background creates an eerie yet ethereal glow which speaks to the nature of wildfire photographs and their accompanying aesthetics (a “burning aesthetics” in the words of TJ Demos), a key topic explored by all of this week’s readings. Label by Jay Jolles

El Portal Fire from Tunnel View

Stuart Palley, American

El Portal Fire from Tunnel View, 2014

This photo is part of a series of photographs that the artist Palley has been collecting into the book Terra Flamma, which he released in 2018, documenting the wildfires across California. The image here was made through a long exposure view of the slope as fire raged on. This image presents the sheer scale of the fires, potentially at the cost of producing a distance to their threat. The fire is massive in this image, and its hotspots appear akin to an inverted starfield, producing inverse constellations of destruction on the landscape. Forests become isolated stands of trees, the sky becomes a monochrome orange, reflecting the sheer size of the fires and the devastation they have been able to wreak. Label by Frank Kennedy