Fighting the Dixie Fire with a Santa Barbara Strike Team

Ethan Turpin always feels the itch this time of year to get out in the field. As a Santa Barbara video artist and documentarian who collaborates with scientists to study wildfire, every day spent at the office is a day he could have been in forests or on mountains collecting valuable footage. 

So when the massive Dixie Fire ignited last month ― burning 740,000 acres and counting, leveling the town of Greenville, and threatening dozens of communities ― he prepared for another grim but important assignment. “It’s a historic event I wanted to have some perspective on,” he said.

Turpin recently returned from a four-day trip north, where he embedded with a Santa Barbara County fire crew ― the 20-member Strike Team Charley ― and tested new equipment, including a fireproof camera box he set directly in the path of the blaze. The film was the first he’s captured at night and in a conifer forest (as opposed to Central Coast chaparral) and is part of a growing collection he shares with a U.S. Forest Service fire behavior assessment team.