Images of Yosemite National Park cloaked in the 2018 Ferguson Fire – Northern California, taken in July 2018.

Spending a full month near Yosemite National Park was to be the jewel of my 2018 trip; however, it was not to be as a fire south of the park filled the valley with a choking cloak of smoke. The Ferguson Fire chased me out of the area after only one week as it expanded devouring over 35,000 acers of forest land on the boundary of the park.

I was able to get into the valley in the early days of my stay only to find the views muted by a thick blanket of smoke; a cloud that would grow darker in the days ahead forcing the closure of the valley itself. I was however able to get to two other areas of the park that were less affected by the disaster, the Hetch Hetchy valley and the Tioga Road, and those images are displayed in other galleries.