This year’s California fire season hasn’t come close to the devastation of 2020. Four million acres burned across the state last year, and the August Complex Fire alone burned an area larger than the entire state of Rhode Island.
Bay Area photographer Josh Edelson has spent years documenting California’s wildfires. He typically shoots corporate events and headshots, but when that work dried up during the pandemic, he turned his full attention to breaking news. “That scene was pretty insane. I was just kind of in the midst of a 36-hour straight shift, meaning no sleep, like shooting straight because I came from another fire – the Creek Fire.