Ethnographic Wildfire Research
Over the past few years, wildfires have reached record-breaking levels. Due to aggressive fire suppression and climate change, the buildup of fuels has led to a resurgence of fires. In the Western United States, the average number of days with “extreme fire weather” has doubled over the past two decades. Fueled by strong, gusty winds, hot dry terrains, and increasing drought, many recent fires have coalesced into record-breaking “mega-fires.” These fires are taking on a quality of their own, acting in unrecognizable ways. Wildfires are no longer abiding by the natural laws of our world. These fires represent a shift into a new ontological state: one in which new ecologies, dynamics, and relationships are possible.
In Spring 2020, I received a grant through the Wesleyan Anthropology department to explore what these new climate futures look like. With the pandemic, my research was forced to look a little different. I could no longer fly across the country and conduct research on the ground and in the field- instead the work had to be done remotely. I was no longer bound by location, so the scope of whom I could connect with expanded greatly. I spoke to fire fighters (volunteer, paid, and incarcerated), environmental researchers, members of the US Forest Service, families that lost their homes, government officials, indigenous scientists, aid workers, and even a Tanzanian pepper farmer who had his entire crop field destroyed due to a bushfire.
Over the course of two years, I created relationships with folks living all over the country and trusted them to be my eyes and ears and nose. We explored new, creative ways to get to know one another (photo elicitation projects, virtual tours of landscapes, etc.). I thought with scientists, theorists, and anthropologists, and spent my final year at Wesleyan writing. The most recent iteration of the project is a 120 page ethnography which is structured in three chunks: “before,” “during” and “after” a fire.
Below, you will find a PDF of the ethnography and a synopsis of each chapter.
In the first chapter, I look at what life is like before a fire. What does it mean to be in a constant state of waiting? For many people who live in a fire-prone landscape, it is not a question of if but when a fire will sweep through their community. This certainty of future ruination has made people feel frozen in time, unable to create their own future. This section focuses on Topanga, a town 30 minutes outside of Los Angeles. It is described by residents as a "tinderbox waiting to ignite."
In the second chapter, I engage more directly with the immediacy of a fire, looking at how this natural disaster obliterates boundaries. Similar to the ways in which disturbances create heterogeneity within a landscape, fires break down physical and conceptual boundaries, opening up space for possibility. To do so, this chapter will focus on New Mexico, as it is an especially fragmented landscape. I worked with a scientist and community organizer that is a part of Cochiti Pueblo.
Finally, in the third chapter, I focus my attention on what the “aftermath” of a fire is like. Thinking with the scientific phenomena of “compound extremes,” I explore how the disaster of a fire is self-reproducing, creating a cascade of other catastrophes long after the flames are out. Focusing on Butte County and Paradise, California, this last section examines fire’s powerful ability to spur social disorderings, creating violent and racist logics. I look at the aftermath as its own dynamic and constantly changing space.
To access the entire PDF, please click below!
