Megafires spurred by climate change no longer spare any region of the globe.

On November 8th, 2018 in Butte County, California, USA Camp Fire, the deadliest fire in the history of this American state, destroyed more than 620 sq. km of forest and 13,500 homes over 18 days. The city of Paradise, nestled in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, was utterly ravaged by the flames, which left 85 people dead and 4 missing from a population of 26,000.
Three years later, on July 13th 2021, the massive Dixie Fire tore through this same community. By the end of September when this fire was finally extinguished, it had caused the destruction of 1,300 homes, the death of a firefighter, and more than a billion dollars in material damages.

Maxime Riché has returned again and again to the tragedy-stricken community of Butte and the Paradise area - a city whose name is a sad irony today. In this project, the French photographer bears witness less to the fires as such, and more to their aftermath. He shows us what happens when life continues - and it does, always, continue.
Using infrared film, the images feature striking colours that recall the visual vocabulary of the blazing flames. Most importantly, he introduces us to the men and women who carry the fear of the next fire in their hearts as they face the task of rebuilding a Paradise brutally transformed into hell on earth.

“I met those who decided to rebuild their "paradise" in a place that now seems brutally inhospitable. To account for the intensity of emotion heard in my conversations with survivors, I use an infrared slide film, whose blazing colors break into the tenuous normality of their new life, flashbacks of the flames seared on their retinae as they rebuild in the shadow of the next disaster.

The tale of Paradise gives us a glimpse at the next place that will have to go through healing after a disaster whose causes are, increasingly, human.”
- Maxime Riché