When the Morning Sky Was on Fire

On Saturday 1st August, I dragged myself out of bed at stupid o’clock and headed up to the Folly, hoping to photograph a spectacular sunrise.

I arrived on the ridge around half an hour before daybreak. The air felt surprisingly fresh, and the cool breeze was a welcome relief after the relentless heat of the recent heatwaves. In the darkness before dawn, I launched the drone to get a sense of how the landscape looked from above.

To the north, smoke from the mountain fires around Blaenavon was pouring over the hills and spilling into the valley below, stretching towards Goytre and Mamhilad. To the south, another huge plume of smoke was rising from an industrial fire in Ponthir.

The eastern sky was already glowing orange, signalling the arrival of a new day. Behind me, in the west, the sky had turned pink, touched by the subtle colours of the Belt of Venus.

I stood alone on the ridge, with only the Folly Tower for company. The smell of burning hung heavily in the air, strong in my nostrils. Looking north and south at the columns of smoke, it felt as though everywhere around me was on fire.

Then the sun appeared.

It rose above the horizon like a great ball of flame, climbing into the heavens through the smoke-stained sky. For a few precious moments, I managed to capture the fiery disc rising behind the battlements of the Folly Tower.

The landscape around the ridge looked parched. The grass was yellow and brittle, as dry as straw beneath my feet. There was none of the lush summer green that would normally soften the hills at this time of year.

As the sun climbed higher, I began walking back along the path towards the car. On the way, I stopped once more to photograph the rising sun behind the lonely beech tree, its familiar silhouette standing against the burning morning sky.

It was an unusual sunrise for many reasons: beautiful, dramatic and deeply unsettling.

While I was standing up there, I made a wish.

I wished for rain.

It may seem a strange thing to wish for in the middle of summer, but the land is crying out for it now.