yosemitefirefall

Yosemite Firefall: A Photographer’s Guide in 2024

We photographers generally have long lists of projects we want to do and then we have our bucket list items -- those things we can only hope we someday get a chance to shoot. As a nature and landscape photographer, the big three on my bucket list were the Subway at Zion, Fly Geyser, and Yosemite’s Firefall.

A History of the Yosemite Firefall and Tips for Photographing It

Each year from summer of 1872, the owners of Glacier Point hotel started the event of Yosemite Firefall. For seven nights a week, they would spill hot embers from Glacier Point down to the valley 3000 feet below. The event ended in 1968 when the National Park Service ordered it to stop because the overwhelming number of visitors that it attracted overwhelmed the meadows, and because it was not a natural event. NPS wanted to preserve the Valley, returning it to its natural state.