By Editor,Emma Richter

Copyright dailymail

Many have been told to run from danger, but Josh Edelson does the opposite.

Edelson, an experienced photo journalist, has been on the frontline for about 15 years capturing the terror of wildfires in California.

The snapper, who wears firefighter gear and is often close behind a crew when major blazes break out, recently got the chance to show his impressive work from the past ten years at the annual Visa pour l’image festival in Pérignon, France.

While speaking about the exhibit entitled ‘A Decade of Wildfire’, Edelson told the Daily Mail that although some might think the blistering flames are the most dangerous part of the job, it’s really when the fire goes out that you have to worry.

When asked to describe one of his scariest encounters capturing wildfires, Edelson spoke about the danger he and firefighters refer to as ‘windowmakers’.

About 10 years ago he was picturing the Valley Fire just as the flames went out when all of a sudden he saw ‘some power lines shaking violently as if there was like a dinosaur in the bushes’.

After deciding to ‘floor’ his car for his own safety, Edelson turned back and realized a massive tree had fallen right behind his car.

‘And that actually scares me more than getting caught in flames. Firefighters call those widowmakers, because after the fires go out, or after it seems like the fire has gone out, trees can still burn from the inside of the tree or even down under the ground into the roots for sometimes weeks after fires go out,’ he explained.

‘So trees fall all the time. You don’t know when a tree is going to fall or where. So that’s actually a really big danger,’ he added.

He went on to describe another unimaginable time he literally had to drive through a fire to save his and another photographer’s life.

It was during the Dixie Fire in 2020 when the town of Greenville burned down, and instead of running from it, Edelson, of course, ran right for it.

He and another photographer made their way down a narrow two-lane road in two separate cars surrounded by 150ft tall trees on both sides, when all of sudden they were confronted by a huge fire in the middle of the street.

Edelson recalled: ‘And as I’m trying to get to the town I came to a spot where the fire just was completely going across the road.

‘Like, all the trees were on fire. It was basically a wall of fire. So clearly, I could not continue, so I stopped.’

Both he and his friend quickly started to message each other and communicate on the radio to figure out their next move during the ‘pretty terrifying moment’.

‘So, we were stuck. We were basically pinched in between two massive flame fronts. They were kind of, like, closing in on us. That was a pretty terrifying moment,’ he said.

It was then that Edelson decided it was time to take a risk as he picked up on the time between the burning trees.

‘Like, you know if you burn a bunch of matches, like, it’ll do a big burst of flame, and then there’ll be, like, a second or so between.

‘The big flame, and when the next one goes up there’s, like, a very short window in between when the trees would burn and I tried to time it right between, and then we just punched it and drove right through it [the flames].’

He added: ‘That was the only choice. If we had stayed, we would have been in a much worse situation.’

For him, that moment was less about getting the perfect action shot of the flames, and more about putting him and his pals’ lives first.

Stress and concern comes with any dangerous job and Edelson and his family are no strangers to this.

Since he and his wife had their son three years ago, the photographer said his entire outlook on his career has changed.

‘And I’ve been doing this much longer than since I’ve had a kid. It was definitely easier when we didn’t have a child.

‘But now I have a child and every time I leave she (his wife) has to pick up the slack because I’m not there to help,’ he added.

His wife often worries about his health as he races into infernos, but the biggest challenge they face is the work-life balance, he said.

‘It’s tricky because I have to choose which fires are worth the stress on the relationship,’ he explained, adding that small fires aren’t as pressing compared to the ones that impact communities and cause evacuations.

Despite the everlasting danger that comes with chasing wildfires and other natural disasters, including tornadoes and earthquakes, Edelson said he wouldn’t have it any other way.

‘Natural disasters are definitely the thing that I’m most interested in mostly because I feel like… humans…We think that we’ve, you know, got control of the planet, that we’re, like, the master of our environment and that we control the earth, we control the weather, we control everything.

‘But then mother nature comes in and is like I’m about to show you how small you really are, and it forces you into a humbleness.’

Although picturing natural disasters is his biggest passion, Edelson said it only accounts for about 20 to 30 percent of his ‘normal workflow’.

He also does a lot of corporate photography, including events, headshots and advertising campaigns.