Terra Flamma is a documentary journalism project photographing wildfires, the most acute effect of drought, climate change, and human sprawl in California and beyond. “Terra Flamma” is a rough Latin translation for “earth on fire.” The aim of the project is to photograph fires in a different way, one that makes a viewer examine the image and perhaps pique their interest and educate themselves more on wildfires and the forces behind them.
Only specially credentialed media are allowed in the fire zones. Beyond expertise, photographing fires requires a steady resupply of equipment.

For “Terra Flamma: Wildfires at Night,” author Stuart Palley devoted five years to photographing California blazes. But when his book was to launch in December 2017, publication got held up because of the massive Thomas fire in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, the largest wildfire in state history — at that time.
“Wildfires at Night” did finally get published by Schiffer, but not before the raging Camp fire — the new recordholder for California’s deadliest and most destructive — had broken out.

From the towering pines of Shasta Trinity National Forest, to the chaparral scrub of San Diego's Mexican border, to Yosemite and the Western Sierras, Stuart Palley documents California's raging wildfires and the forces behind them during the state's worst fire season in modern history. The dramatic images, a half decade in the making, capture the simultaneous beauty and destruction that wildfires bring as fire seasons get longer and more deadly, expensive, and destructive. In the wake of California’s record-breaking series of wildfires in 2017, the images encompass five fire seasons and 45 fires. They are presented chronologically and culminate with the wine country fire siege that devastated Sonoma and Napa Counties in October 2017 and the Thomas Fire in Southern California, the largest in recorded state history. This timely book defines the state's drought and urban sprawl challenges, drawing a broader picture of global warming and its acute effects worldwide.