John Wark, aerial photographer

John Wark took me on a pictorial journey in his Pueblo photography studio of the two most recent fire tragedies in Southern Colorado. We’ve shown you his pictures from the Wetmore and the Waldo Canyon fires. He has a unique perspective from high in the sky. He shot both of these fires from his plane.

Wark told me when it came to the Waldo Canyon fire, “As I got closer I realized how big it was. It takes a minute to absorb all this.” A day later after taking pictures that have been shown virtually everywhere, he said, “I can remember my first thought. Those are people’s houses. I know we have burned houses. This is an entire neighborhood. It was shocking.”

John Wark has been a pilot for seven years and a photographer for 20 years. He showed me how he took the fire pictures and flies the plane at the same time. He doesn’t used a fixed wing camera. Wark opens the door of the plane and starts shooting the flames below. Wark knows how these pictures are unique and emotionally devastating at the same time, “Most of the emotion gets to you when you are on the ground and look at them. Geez, look at that. Those homes are destroyed.”

Wark also tells me that these pictures serve a very useful purpose in addition to documenting history, they also give some immediate clarity to homeowners who definitely know after seeing them if their homes were in the cross hairs of a fire.