Light & Sie Gallery

Wouter Deruytter at Light & Sie

Lightning started a fire in Wicked Creek, Mont., on Aug. 9, 2007. During the next two weeks, 28,600 acres burned.

Photographer Wouter Deruytter was staying at a ranch outside the wilderness area where the fire occurred. The elegiac color photographs he took during the fires and months afterward are on view at Light and Sie gallery in a show called "Wicked Creek."

While the fire was active, Mr. Deruytter did not have access to the fire zone itself. Smoke appears in the distance in a few of his images, but his main focus is on the second-response team of firefighters that arrived to contain the blaze. These are mostly men in their 20s doing difficult but well-paid work. They clear brush, create fire breaks and chop trees. They are private operators, somewhat like ambulance drivers, and during the season they go from fire to fire.

When Mr. Deruytter photographed them, they had just arrived. Their yellow shirts and green pants are clean, and the scenery surrounding them is spectacular. They are happy to pose for his portraits, and in fact everyone seems to be having a great time.

There is a real sense of camaraderie among the firefighters. Mr. Deruytter depicts them marching off in the morning, shovels and axes in hand, and then trudging home in the evening. He is showing us the everyday aspect of a catastrophe.

He went back in November to photograph the burned-out areas. Charred trees still stand erect against a gray sky. A deer stands exposed on a denuded hillside. The first snow has fallen, blanketing everything in white. The scene is peaceful, eerie and sad. It's a sublime landscape that three months earlier had reached a temperature of 1,000 F.

Charles Dee Mitchell

Through May 24 at Light & Sie, 129 Leslie St. Hours: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. Free. 214-745-2255. www.lightandsie.com.