Fire Weather Observations

This project documents the confluence of weather and wildfire in visual first-person. Combining journal entries from the fireline, weather observations, collated map archives, and the vestiges of keenly registered physical experiences, this project explores the complicated physical and psychological testimony of fighting fire on the landscape. Beginning on a fire assignment in Idaho, June 2022, fire maps became a finely annotated record, documenting across days the collaborative forces of fire, topography, and weather. Now spanning multiple fire seasons, each cartographic entry gives a specific if cryptic window into the details that drive such labors upon the landscape. Adjoining the maps is a burgeoning compilation of fire-weather observation ledger book pages, decomposing, weathered, and continuously updating. These works coalesce into a post-fire material meditation. They are accompanied by a written narrative detailing one day plucked from many represented throughout this project.