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Larch shed their leaves even though they look like evergreens. They are very pretty in the fall when they turn yellow--you can pick them out easily on the mountainside. I used a gold ink pen to draw in the trees and they glitter in the light on this piece. They are also fire-adapted and thrive in low-intensity fires. In Montana, prescribed burns are used to help larch thrive and hopefully prevent an intense wildfire from wiping out some beautiful old forests. This painting is varnished and mounted on a cradled board. Contact me if you want to see photos of the edges and what it might look like on your wall.

I love making art, but my day job is wildland firefighting. I fell backwards into fire management after earning a degree in Forestry. Most of the summer, I travel to fire assignments, predicting fire spread and behavior one day or several weeks in advance with the goal of helping managers make good decisions about ongoing wildfires. I've held positions in Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, the Bitterroot National Forest in Montana, in Christchurch New Zealand, and Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. Fire behavior prediction involves fire science, knowing the 'art' of fire, and some computer wizardry. Wildfire can indeed be destructive, but in the natural environment, fire means renewal, regrowth, and a diverse landscape patchwork. My...