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Smoke billowed above the Piute Fire. I could see it, a hundred miles away, as I drove to my assignment in northern LA County on June 30.

The fire was “blowing up” and pumping out thick, blackish smoke and ash that rose fast in superheated air currents. Ice crystals formed a silvery crown thousands of feet up over the dark plume, it looked like a beautiful thundercloud over the Sierras.

At this point, firefighters have told me the icy crown could grow heavy and collapse into the plume, forcing strong winds back into the fire to blow it in many directions at once. This fire was taking off and communities were threatened. I informed my editors in New York, shot and filed my assignment and then I drove north.

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The Piute fire was a mountain fire with tall pine forests in the upper elevations. Temperatures reached the 90s and above in the lower reaches. A web of back country dirt roads into the fire started an hour away from the nearest wireless signal I could use for filing my pictures. The smoke plume prevented me from using a satellite phone so driving took up much of my time.

Falling trees and branches called “widow makers” were a constant threat in the charred forest. One freshly fallen tree blocking a jeep trail reminded me that a small chain saw and a steel tow chain could become life savers.

Another, potentially more dangerous fire, was coming to life and many firefighters were suddenly sent to the seaside city of Goleta, California, leaving one flank of the Piute fire with few to watch over it. I left too.

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Official reports at the time indicated only a 35-acre blaze but fire officials knew better. A massive response was sent as it began to threaten thousands of urban and suburban homes. The Gap fire quickly became the official top priority.

It was different from the Piute fire, instead of blazing through forests of pine where residents were few and expansion meant running deeper into the wilderness, the Gap fire chewed through brushy hills to reach the city.

It was in a “Wildland-Urban Interface Fire Area” which meant that it had the luxury of staying in a hotel with a bed and a shower with internet access - all just a few miles from the fire. At the Piute fire, two nighs ago, I’d only slept a few hours in my car until the blazing hot sunrise woke me up, drenched in sweat.

It also meant paved roads on three sides of the fire, making for easy drives to some of the better places from which to observe the firefighting efforts. For the first time in days I saw other members of the press, many from LA.  Ocean views at the Gap fire were scenic but more importantly for me, the Pacific Ocean kept the air many degrees cooler than the Piute fire.

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It is the most dangerous time of year right now, when powerful Santa Ana winds rip through mountain passes. Conditions have never been more favorable for wildfires to grow monstrous proportions.

News photographers in California could be just one arsonist, lightning strike or cigarette away from yet another historic fire disaster this  year.

Ash on the car in the morning, the smell of burning Eucalypt, it must be bushfire season again. Just when I thought a lazy Sunday afternoon by the beach might be on the cards, the call came in: “Bush fires are threatening homes north of Sydney”. I had, earlier in the day, suspected a bushfire emergency might emerge, as the outside conditions were very hot, very dry, and very windy, kind of like standing inside a hair dryer.

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Step one was to pack the car with water, lots of it, and my regulation bush fire fighting protective clothing consitsing of fire resistant jacket, trousers, gloves, helmet, goggles and boots. Basically the same as the Rural Fire Service uses, but with a luminescent “MEDIA” patch emblazoned on the back.

Next was to pinpoint the fire front on a map, and try to get to it. Australian bushfires, whilst burning vast areas of land, are extremely tricky to get to, usually because they are burning in pretty inaccessable terrain. I had heard on the radio that families had been evacuated from the popular picnic area of Bobbin Head, so that’s where I was headed. Police had set up roadblocks around the Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park to prevent rubberneckers, tourists, and media from entering. Only residents who wanted to get home to defend their properties were allowed into the restricted area. My way forward barred, I drove in a loop around the national park, to find another roadblock but this one was attended by the Rural Fire Service (RFS) instead of the police. The RFS media officer Rebel Talbert gathered together some of the assembled media for a quick briefing, and then herded us into her 4×4 for a trip to see what was happening on the fire ground.

We found several crews from many districts of Sydney with their fire tenders, conducting a back-burning excercise in the national park. Stepping through the brittle undergrowth, it’s little wonder how this material provides fire with potentially explosive raw fuel. The leaf litter on the ground is ankle deep and bone dry. The back burning operation seems to me like a tightrope walking exercise. the RFS are deliberately lighting fires in these conditions, and trying to keep them controlled, so that when the firefront eventually reaches the area, the backburning has depleted much of the fuel and the fire is easier to control.

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With alarming speed huge flames rear up from a tree that has caught fire in the canopy nearby, and the firefighters rush to hose it down before it can leap over the road and escape into the bush beyond. They succeed, with glowing embers and ash raining down from the force of the high-pressure hose on the burining tree trunk. Eyes are peeled for evidence of an ember attack over the road, where a fire can suddendly burst back into life. A water-bombing aircraft is audible overhead, huge sky cranes that can carry a payload of 9,000 litres of water to dump directly on the firefront. Smoke renders everything beyond a few metres invisible though, and the chopper comes and goes. Time for a drink of water, and the backburning continues down into the valley.

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On a different edge of the Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park a couple of hours later, I arrive to see streets crowded with people who have come out of their homes to watch a spectacle that is awesome. The ridge of the national park beyond this small enclave of homes is ablaze, and the entire sky is orange in the dusk. “I’m going to go and get the hose again” says a resident as the sight fills her with worry for her home, and hurries away to hose down her house roof and guttering.

In all, the RFS save all the homes that were threatened, and controlled the fire within a couple of days, with the help of some friendlier weather. Disaster averted, this time.