When a forest fire passes over the land, you have to that is the end of all life there. The heat is just so that how could anything survive? But that is not necessarily the Less than a mile from Yosemite national park, Chad Hanson is wading through a of knee-high conifers. These have burst from the ashes of the vast 2013 Rim fire. The US Forest Service essentially says the baby trees don’t exist. The agency says that catastrophic fires have parts of the forest, painting an eerie picture of swaths of blackened trees. They describe their trunks like something out of a horror film. But the vibrant green pines, firs and cedars tell a story. They surround Hanson among the patches, and make his heart sing with joy. Victims of being burned during California’s third-largest wildfire. They are symbols of that even after the darkest moments, the light does return. Life is very delicate, that’s , but its resilience should also never be underestimated.