Kate Padilla
Digital, Adobe Fresco
Statement: Last semester I lived in Grand Lake, Colorado, a town just outside of Rocky Mountain National Park. Occasionally, gusts of smoke would blow in from distant wildfires obscuring the sky for a few days at a time. One day, the smoke became particularly thick. Later, I found out a new fire had started, and it was the closest one yet- it was in our county. That week, this fire grew from 18,000 to 87,000 acres each day, becoming the East Troublesome fire– the second largest and one of the most destructive wildfires in Colorado history. In one day, I evacuated from where I was living, and by the next day the fire was surrounding our home.
This digital drawing that I created on Adobe Fresco depicts a view of this fire based on a photo I took while we evacuated. The huge clouds of smoke from this incredibly destructive fire towered over us, comprised of overwhelming shades of red, brown and yellow.
Colorado’s three largest recorded wildfires happened in 2020 and all of its 20 largest wildfires happened since the start of the 2000s. Fires like this one are caused by many different factors, most of which are a result of increasing temperature and drought. These changes occur as the world’s climate changes as a result of human activity.