Headed up the Angeles Crest Highway with photojournalist Jonathan Alcorn to cover the last gasp of the Station Fire. We drove up to Chilao camp area and a heavy ash color rain began to fall.
Met some hard working "hot shots" from Arizona who were chopping up the excess brush from the roadways of the Angeles Crest highway. The fire began to lay down so we headed to the summit of Mt. Wilson. Everything looked quiet up there, the fire was unable to climb the phoscheck soaked forest.
Our last stop was the Stonyvale area in the Big T area. Started to take photos of a couple of burned out homes. Walked on one to one property and began to feel bad for the owners loss, until I saw a pen of poor kitties that were left to die in the fire. Some of the cats died on the outside of the wire cages, not wanting to leave their friends and fellow felines behind. Broke my heart that someone would leave them to die in the slowest moving fire in history. The home owners made it out okay, why they left my feline friends to die in such a brutal way escapes me. Seeing my fellow felines abandoned will haunt and sadden me for a long time.
Photos by Ted Soqui © 2009
