viz.

Image Credit: Jay Janner AMERICAN-STATESMAN

Since this past Sunday the local wildfires have been a dominant force in the Texas media. Over 1,000 homes and 35,000 acres were destroyed in the Bastrop area alone, and while the Bastrop fire has been contained there are more and more reports of fires springing up north of Houston and throughout East Texas.  It would be a mistake, though, to consider this rash of wildfires an isolated event. As the months long drought has continued wildfires have been nervously anticipated alongside cracked foundations and the flooding a serious rain could bring. The images that surround this disaster carry with them that sense of inevitability. The standard series of disaster photos, though, cast confusion around the event—by forcing the fires into a basic linear narrative we are given the impression that things have settled down even as dozens of blazes continue to advance.