From the spontaneous media coverage of the frightening fire that struck the mountains of Southern California in 2013, Alex Tyson paints a chaotic, nervous portrait of anonymous people engaged in the collective defense of a national park ravaged by flames.

There, in the midst of a steep, hostile landscape, the urgency of the situation brings together professional and volunteer firefighters, as well as inmates from the state prison who come to live and lend a hand to the firefighters.

From that moment on, by mixing observation footage, collages of amateur videos and radio recordings, the filmmaker produces a complex, hybrid chronology filled with contagious tension. Each narrative line is both a gripping adventure and a dramatic take on a global event recorded in real time.

But it's by staying as close to the action as possible, without context or superfluous information, that the film creates the vertigo of environmental catastrophe, and gradually succeeds in conveying a shared sense of belonging to the territory.

Terence Chotard
Filmmaker