. . .though not in a good way today. As I post this there is a 300+ acre fire burning in the community of Bonny Doon about 5 miles from Mount Hermon. The sad part is that people are going to lose their homes and this the weather is not good for fighting fires. It is hot, dry, and windy today.

If there is anything at all good to come out of it though, I got the chance to take some pictures early on in the fire from where the crews were staging. You can see them over on my flickr site. Today I had the day off of work but I was headed over there to chat with a few people since I was bored of hanging out at my house. While standing in front of the APC, Dan Dawson walks up to me and points to the sky and says, “smoke, where’s your camera?!” So I run home while he grabs his and we drive up Felton-Empire Grade to the Bonny Doon Volunteer Fire Department and hop out. At this point, smoke is rising high into the air and it is black and there is a lot of it. We spent about an hour there taking pictures of the planes overhead and the fire crews as they assembled and headed out. In some ways, this was my first taste of photographing a real news event. It’s pretty exhilarating. Being that it was my first though, I didn’t push my luck too much. If I wanted a closer shot, I pulled out my telephoto rather than moving in closer to the “action.” I also realized that it would help A LOT to know more about who is who and how the fire crews are organized. Anyway, I’ve got more photos to organize and edit so I think I’m going to wrap up and head back home. I’ve got some dust flecks I need to clone stamp out and a few over exposed images I need to tweak.

You can see additional shots from Dan on his flickr here.

Filed under: life, photography by Jonathan Assink