Instead of telling 8-year-old Zoe the good news, Dave decided to surprise her. Months later, he learned he’d won $100, a subscription to the magazine, and publication in the February/March 2008 issue. In November 2007, Dave entered “Firestarter” in a JPG Magazine “Emotion Capture” photo contest. It’s like something out of a horror movie.” “But someone with a blank slate has to make sense of the fire in the background and then the little girl with a creepy half-smile. “I guess because I knew the whole backstory, I’d overlooked the expression on Zoe’s face until then,” he says. Three years later, he uploaded one of the images of Zoe on the photo sharing community Zooomr and titled it “Firestarter.” Comments started pouring in, forcing Dave to see his work in a new light.
When he reviewed his pictures, Dave thought the fire was the most interesting part. It was cool - something you don’t see every day.”ĭave, an amateur photographer, snapped 20 or 30 photos before heading home, capturing Zoe and Tristan as they watched the blaze. “The kids and I walked around to see the fire from different angles. “There was no danger or stress in the situation at all,” Dave recalls. Meanwhile, the Roths studied the scene from across the street. Firefighters invited neighborhood children to spray the flames with the hose. Families watched the controlled inferno like they would a high school football game. Any sense of danger quickly dissipated as onlookers learned the house had been donated to the fire department for training. By the time the Roths arrived at the blaze, it was a community event. News travels fast in Mebane, North Carolina, just 20 miles outside Chapel Hill. Dave Roth, Zoe’s dad, quickly gathered the kids and his new digital camera.
She was watching TV with her brother Tristan one Saturday morning in January 2004, when her mom said a house down the street was burning. and creepy as hell.įor the record, Zoe didn't start that fire in the photograph. "I was, like, 'C'mon, this is my meme!'" That meme, known as Disaster Girl, shows 4-year-old Zoe smiling slyly at the camera while a house burns in the background. "Everything was wet, and it was so frustrating," she laughs. But it's true that, a few weeks ago, she and a friend spent two hours trying to light a campfire in Lake Tahoe, where Zoe's working a summer restaurant job.