Photographs of 2018: Nature and environment

Irish Times picks of the year: From California wildfires to an Indonesian tsunami

Photograph: Eric Thayer/Reuters

Gabi and Jonah Frank walk on the Pacific Coast Highway (above) as the Woolsey fire threatens their home in Malibu, California, in November. The 2018 wildfire season has been the American state’s most destructive on record, with almost 8,000 fires devastating communities and burning thousands of hectares. Almost 100 people died.

Sand martins, arriving from Africa, rest on the cliffs at Shankill, Co Dublin, in June.

Photograph: Cyril Byrne

A vixen yawns on the banks of the River Dodder in Dublin in February.

Photograph: Cyril Byrne

A mandarin duck shows off his plumage on the River Dodder in Dublin in April.

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Photograph: Cyril Byrne

Fire-blackened coast at Curracloe, Co Wexford, in July. High-pressure systems sat over Ireland, causing a heatwave and drought, with hosepipe bans across the country, and headaches for farmers. Shrivelled grasslands did reveal some extraordinary archaeological finds, including a henge (circle of stone uprights) near Newgrange, in Co Meath, which was discovered by Anthony Murphy using a drone.

Photograph: Jack Meehan

A building at the base of the Horseshoe Falls at Niagara Falls in Canada is covered in ice in January.

Photograph: Aaron Lynett/Reuters

Two people in a canoe paddle through a street flooded by Hurricane Florence in North Carolina in September. Storm surges and heavy flooding from the hurricane inundated much of the eastern part of the American state.

Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA-EFE

An Indonesian man carries his belongings past a stranded ship after a tsunami devastated part of Indonesia in October. Reports at the time indicated more than 2,000 dead and 5,000 missing.

Photograph: Mast Irham/EPA-EFE