Guardians of Solitude

The images in this series were made in three canyons in the White Cloud Mountains of central Idaho in 2008. About three years earlier, on a windy early September day, a man burning a cardboard box in a burn barrel watched helplessly as sparks escaped and ignited the dry brush at his feet. Over the next two weeks, 40,838 acres of forest burned in a wildfire that was ultimately extinguished by snowfall.