Spruce Trunks, Yellowstone Park

This photograph documents the aftermath of a forest fire in Yellowstone National Park’s Black Sand Basin. The top half of the photo shows the devastation to the park’s spruce trees, reduced to charred stumps in a smoky field. The pool of water in the foreground, likely left by the rainstorm that extinguished the fire, presents a more sanguine reflection of the sky at sunset. This image is eerily prescient of the historic 1988 Yellowstone fires that would consume over a third of the park two years later.