the FUTURE in FLAMES

TY ZOLLNER, A FIREFIGHTER WITH THE CITY OF Alameda, Calif., knew that the call for help would come soon. On the morning of Nov. 8, he, like other firefighters around the state, was listening to reports about a wildfire that had started near the town of Paradise. It sounded bad. Bulldozers were pushing burning cars off the road so people could flee. Requests for additional engines were pouring in. Soon enough, he was tearing up the freeway in a caravan of five engines, one of more than 5,500 firefighters who would descend on Butte County to combat the historic Camp Fire.

A native of Northern California, Zollner has been facing down wildfires for more than a decade. But he’s never seen destruction like what happened in Paradise, where flames tore through street after street of homes, indiscriminately turning the landmarks residents once navigated by into unrecognizable ash. “To see something like that is breathtaking,” he says.