This photo was taken from the Needles, in the early hours of the 150,000 acre "McNally Fire", near Kernville, California, on Sunday, July 21, 2002. From where we were, we could see huge orange flames shooting up the ridges, the sky went from blue to orange, then grey in about an hour. We had no idea that this was the begining of a historic fire that would take over a month to burn out.

More details about the fire