Fire is a crucial element in southern California’s ecology and culture.  Every fall, fueled by the Santa Ana winds, fire descends upon the sage scrub communities, cleaning out the underbrush, allowing life to start anew.  The Santa Anas (and to some extent their homologues in other Mediterranean climates) have an almost mythical status, and are the subject of Crime Noir novels (The Underground Man, 1971) and even punk rock (Bad Religion’s Los Angeles is Burning).

I photographed this burn area last weekend (it burned in late July) in the–appropriately named–Santa Ana Mountains of southern California.  While life is starting to spring back up, the area is still largely a bone yard.

The Bone Yard, December 2010