Apocalyptic Images from the West Coast Wildfires

KENT NISHIMURA. PHOTOJOURNALIST, LOS ANGELES TIMES: Well, thanks for having me. I mean, being present and being there to show the rest of the world what exactly is happening in California currently and — I mean, I, along with other photographers that are covering it, are all — we’re all outfitted with the proper safety gear and everything else that allows us to be as close as the firefighters are.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Have you ever seen anything like it? I mean, I know you’ve been documenting these fires for a long time, and to be as close as the firefighters are, I mean, that is seriously very, very, very scary to hear you say that. You’ve been doing — I think it’s called the Creek Fire. That’s burned some 200,000 acres.

NISHIMURA: Yes.

AMANPOUR: Tell me about how that has been progressing and what is the status of the Creek Fire?

NISHIMURA: I’ve actually been broken off from the coverage of it. But the Creek Fire, like I had seen it immediately blow up on my Twitter and social media, and I had spoken with my bosses about going up to cover it. I mean, honestly, it’s been an experience. The best way that I can describe kind of what the fire, what it sounds like, is that it sounds like baking, cooking on a griddle, and as you get closer to it, there is kind of like a whooshing noise that almost sounds kind of menacing. And part of that is because of, like, the weather that the fire generates on its own, but, I mean, these fires have been breaking out all across the West Coast right now. And in the last years, they’ve become — they’ve burned hotter and have burned faster and more widespread in recent history. It’s startling.

AMANPOUR: Yes. I mean, you said you wanted to go out there and show the world what’s happening, show the rest of America what’s happening in your state and up the West Coast. What are you seeing? I know you’re sticking very close and you’re documenting a lot of what the firefighters are doing. What is standing out for you? Because they must be exhausted. This is now an annual event that goes on for weeks, if not months. I mean, what are they going through?

NISHIMURA: I mean, from the firefighters that I’ve talked to, they literally are going from one fire to the next with a little break in between sometimes. But they’re constantly jumping. There were a couple firefighters I had met in the CZU Lightning Complex that immediately, while they were still on the way to the Bear Creek Fire, or the Bear Fire in Orrville, and there were also firefighters like that were coming from all over the place, coming over to the Creek Fire as well. I mean, and they seem exhausted. I mean, they’re constantly working, constantly fighting the fires and doing everything they possibly can to protect towns as well as to mitigate — [technical difficulty]