It indeed looks like the fire is far closer than an hour away. I can imagine that the damage caused by fire is horrible and I hope that there are not many victims of this fire. You are very brave when you go chasing the fire :) People panic and run away and you run towards it. But I'm sure that your client was happy with your work. I didn't know that California was suffering such fires. I understand that the place is dry but we mainly get to hear about fires in Australia.
If I don't think about your fact that the effect is caused by fire, I love your photos :) The colors are full and vibrant and the mixture of colors in this way can only be done by nature. I especially like the ones with birds escaping the fire and the dark red ones with people on the roof.
It's amazing and scary to see how powerful our nature is and what damage it can cause (not that we are not causing any harm to the nature ourselves).
Thank you for sharing! And congratulations on your curie vote!
Thanks! I've heard it said that the best photographer is the one who actually has a camera. Just got lucky with being in this valley at that time I guess. I didn't do any color corrections, only straightened horizons and cropped in a bit. As you say, only nature can come up with those gradients, I too was merely an observer.
Thanks for the comment and for checking out the blog. :)