The inaugural LAFD Photo of the Year competition left no doubts as to the viewers choice, with Dakota Clark rising to the top.

Throughout the year, photographers from across the region capture images of Your Los Angeles City Fire Department in action. Structure fires, brush fires, traffic collisions, hoist operations - it is all captured by their lenses. 

They send their work to us, which in turn, allows us to share the work of Your LAFD with you.  Their art allows us to communicate, educate and engage with our communities in a way we could not replicate on our own.

We are extremely grateful for the generosity of these dedicated artists who follow their passion and let us deliver it to you. Honoring them and their work via the inaugural LAFD Photo of the Year competition was an exciting way to close out 2020.

All photographers who submitted pictures/videos to us in 2020 were invited to pick their one favorite, 'best' image for consideration. We knew it would not be an easy choice. 

Ultimately, we had 22 pictures of Your LAFD in action up for a vote.

The contest was held on our Instagram Story platform and the photo stream garnered over 15,000 views!  

Once the votes were tabulated, the top four emerged but the winner was a clear and definitive choice. The results were announced on an Instagram Live stream, which is available to view on our IGTV series. The winners received the ultimate LAFD swag bag donated by the LAFD Foundation, a challenge coin from the Fire Chief Ralph Terrazas and a feature across all LAFD social media platforms.

We are pleased and honored to share those results with you here. We thank our Instagram community for showing up and we look forward to making this an annual event. 

1st Place: Dakota Clark's winning image (picture at top of page) was taken at a Greater Alarm structure fire in the Palms community on November 12th. This incident produced two of the top four images.  

2nd Place: Justin Johnson: Structure fire in South LA on September 16, 2020

3rd Place: Garet Jatsek: Greater Alarm Structure Fire in Palms on November 12, 2020

4th Place: Chris Conkle: Boyd Street Structure Fire in DTLA on May 16, 2020