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Steven G. Smith

Photographer/DP
      
Public Project
WILDFIRE, Forest Fires In The American West
Copyright Steven G. Smith 2024
Date of Work May 2018 - Ongoing
Updated Mar 2018
Topics Documentary, Environment, Multimedia, News, Photography, Photojournalism

Ever since we seized fire from nature at the dawn of our civilization it has defined us. We have prided ourselves on our ability to control it and shape it to our needs. But the same fire that fuels our internal combustion engines and powers are industries is overheating our planet. The rising temperatures are stressing our forests and our wildlands and spawning catastrophic wildfires around the globe.

In our effort to tame fire it seems we have made it more feral. Rising spring and summer temperatures in the West have created a fire season that lasts ten weeks longer than in the 1970's and results in larger and more frequent blazes.

These new blazes known as megafires, are erupting at a rate seven times greater each year in the past decade and are burning upward of 10,000 acres and sterilizing the earth with their intensity.

Utilizing powerful images of these megafires this new media film reflects on our relationship with fire, past and present, and wonders how fire will define our future.



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