The Tubbs Firestorm hit Santa Rosa, California in the early morning on October 9, 2017.

The fire was, at the time, unprecedented in its speed, heat and destruction. I live eight miles from the fire and woke to thick smoke in the air and large pieces of ash floating down to earth, some still smoldering as it landed on my property. This was big. I grabbed my cameras, and an N95 mask to filter the smoke and headed to the Western perimeter of where the fire had been stopped by the Berkeley Fire Department. I’d never imagined such total destruction in my life. Car wheels melted into rivulets, children’s tricycles scorched into heaps of steel, 5,643 structures destroyed with 22 people dead. One building in its path was a McDonald’s restaurant. For me, it was always an icon for all that is good and bad in this land of the American Dream.

— PDW