One in ten Americans lives in California, but nearly everyone everywhere equates it with big dreams, infinite possibility, and endless promise. And catastrophe: earthquakes, fires, human lives lost or mislaid. Two recent volumes of photography explore these twin takes on the Golden State, and Wildfire, Sasha Bezzubov’s collection of images taken in the aftermath of several recent California wildfires, explores the latter one. Artful and detached, it pictures natural destruction as a great equalizer, as fires—more and bigger ones every year—gobble up million-dollar homes, cars, and the detritus of modern life at the “urban-woodland interface.” It’s a grim tour, starting with Bill McKibben’s ominous introduction linking the fires with climate change. One can’t help but equate the collapsed structures and burned-out cars with their former occupants’ dreams and desires reduced to ashes.