Fire and the Photographer
September 9th, 2009 Rob Sheppard
The big Station fire outside of Los Angeles has gotten a lot of attention from the media, and for good reason. It is a very big fire (still burning) and quite dramatic.
Fires can definitely be scary. They can threaten lives and homes. Fire is also critical to our lives. We need fire for energy. It is fire that creates steam for many electric power plants. It is fire that provides most of our energy. It is fire that we use for grilling those hamburgers on holidays like Labor Day.
And fire is also an important part of many ecosystems. In some places, such as the wiregrass-longleaf pine ecosystems of Northern Florida as seen in this photo, fire is a critical part of that ecosystem. This image shows part of a prescribed fire that clears out the brush that has invaded this plant community and allows the natural ecosystem to thrive.
As nature photographers, we are the eyes of so many people. Most people don’t see all the things we do, and they especially do not study the subjects the way we do. A photo of a subject, whatever it is, is then something to be seen in a whole different way because it is now emphasized and “cut out” of the world for all to see.
Yet it is interesting that you see so little nature photography showing fires or the effects of fires. One reason why mountain lions are protected and not persecuted through their range is that there are many photographs of them. People see these beautiful creatures in pictures even if they are unlikely to ever see one in person. Photographs of fires and effects of fires could also help us see fire as a part of the natural environment, not as simply something destructive.
Smokey the Bear probably hurt us a bit because the U.S. Forest Service was once very aggressive in promoting the idea that forest fires were bad. That agency wanted to protect the forests for lumber, for harvesting. Yet many of these forests now have a build up of fuel that will make fires far worse than they were in the past when they occurred naturally every few years in such places.
Some people confuse the idea of build up of fuel in Western forests with the growth of chaparral in Southern California. That is understandable because few photographers have spent time photographing and celebrating the chaparral. This is a shrub-based ecosystem without big trees (which is one reason a lot of photographers have trouble photographing it). It is also an ecosystem that burns, but normally, not frequently. The plants in it are adapted to fire. Most of the woody plants resprout quickly after a fire. Some seeds actually need fire or smoke to stimulate germination. And many wildflowers will come out and bloom the spring following a fire. Fire is a natural process of the chaparral, and this ecosystem is never “destroyed” (as the media likes to sensationalize it) from a single fire. It can be severely damaged, however, with fires that come too frequently (often from man-made causes).
Still, we see little photography of this regeneration of life after a fire. There is so much opportunity to do this. Fire is part of many, many ecosystems around the country. When a fire occurs in one near you, find out more about its true effects on the ecology of the area and if there might not be some cool photo opps there.
