Photographs of 2018: Nature and environment

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.

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

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

RIP: Famous names we said goodbye to in 2018

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Business 2018: the winners and the losers

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Rental market dysfunction set to continue through 2019

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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.

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

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.

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.