Rim Fire Zone, Morning. Rim of the World, California. October 30, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Hazy morning light filters across the burned hillsides in the area of the Rim Fire, California

In photographic terms this is perhaps not the most spectacular photograph, and the location is not quite a scenic icon – though it is a place that many stop and take a look on their way to Yosemite, the “Rim of the World” overlook along highway 120 between Groveland and the northern park entrance. However, this view is loaded with implications and connected to many stories.

Late this past summer, the state of California was tremendously dry after a second drought season. It wasn’t a question of whether there would be big wildfires, but more of where, when, and how many. Perhaps the biggest one of all started very near the Rim of the World overlook, and in the hot and dry conditions it quickly – some might say explosively – spread to the north, east, and south. While many think of it as “the Yosemite fire” – and it did burn a lot of terrain inside the park – it really was more of a “Yosemite area” fire. Because of the conditions – the long-term conditions of drought and the immediate conditions of heat and wind – the fire apparently did very serious damage to the forests in the are.

Shortly after the fire was contained, I thought that I might drive through the park on Tioga Pass Road to get to and from the eastern Sierra in early October. In fact, the roads had opened up again by that time, but snow closed Tioga Pass on my trip to the west and we ended up coming back over Sonora Pass. So the post-fire conditions of this area, which is very familiar to me after years of visits, were still an unknown when I drove to The Valley on October 30 for a few days of autumn photography. Passing into the first fringes of the burned areas along highway 120 things didn’t look all that different than they do after any wildfire – some areas badly burned, some singed, and others that mostly escaped the fire. I decided to stop at the Rim of the World overlook, which was pretty much the only place where stopping was allowed, and get out and take a look. I was floored by the scale of the fire. It had come from behind my position, burned down and across the deep canyon of the Tuolumne River, up the canyon walls on the far side, and then across a vast series of receding ridges. Some smoke and haze still seemed to be coming from the area, and early morning light glanced across the ridges, with their dead trees. In the far distance there is a low peak with a bit of early season snow.

I have seen quite a few fires in the park over the past few decades. One not far from here destroyed a large area of forest a few decades ago – and on this trip, ironically, I was noting that new evergreen trees are finally taking hold there. Later several very bad fires blew up from near Foresta, doing terrible damage to the section of Crane Flat Road descending towards The Valley. There have been others. In most of these cases – though I wondered in the case of the most recent Foresta fire, too – it seemed that I could watch the forest recover and return to something resembling what I remember. However, given the intensity and scale of this fire, I wonder if I’ll have that opportunity where the Rim Fire burned?

To end on a cheerier note, a couple of other observations. Even near badly burned areas, I did see sections where this fire only burned some of the vegetation and a few that seemed to have been completely spared. And when I got to a spot inside the park along highway 120 where I often stop to photography dogwood trees in the spring and fall, a spot that seemed like it might have been within the burn zone on the maps, I found my little spot completely intact, with the dogwoods turning to fall colors.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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