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Living with Fire

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Living with Fire Living with Fire How can we live with and contain wildland fires in the age of the pyrocene? MFA Advanced Product Design Product Advanced MFA Umeå Institute of Design Umeå University 2020 Elias Thaddäus Pfuner Elias Thaddäus Pfuner INDEX Abstract 1 01 Introduction Background Review of Topic 4 Partners & Sponsors 6 Societal Relevance 8 02 Context Analogous Research What is a Wildfire? 12 The Fire Triangles 16 Costs & Losses 18 Containing a Wildfire 20 What about the climate? 26 Takeaways 28 03 Insights Qualitative Research Power of Talking 32 Quotes 34 Analysis 36 What is the problem area? 38 04 Direction Opportunity Systemic Change 44 Approach 46 Direction 48 Aim Goals & Wishes 50 05 Ideation World Building Create a world, but how? 54 Fire as a Stakeholder 58 How did society accept this change? 60 News from the Future 62 Feedback Loop 66 Introduction of the Fireguardians 68 06 Prototype FireGuardian Prototype 72 Global Ideas 74 Analysis 78 07 Concept Overview Core Idea 82 Creative Process Process Insights 84 08 Final Result Outcome Identity 94 Monitoring 102 Field Work 106 Environment Based Planning 114 Overview 120 09 Reflection Review Reflection & Conclusion 124 10 Appendix Detail Workshop Pamphlet 128 Timetable Week-by-Week 130 Sources References 132 Figures 134 4 1 ABSTRACT Wildland fires are a natural process with fire to living with fire. I used FLIR, a leading manufacturer for from nature. Even though they are design fiction and speculative design infrared cameras and detection natural, humans inherently fear methods to visualize this systemic devices, was the cooperation partner them and started to suppress them change and give it a platform of for this project. They supported until recent years successfully. provocation for good. The project me during the research phase with More and more countries are seeing describes a future in which humans contacts and continuously during unprecedented fires all around the are in coexistence with wildfires the design process with feedback and globe. Emergency response agencies and are part of the ecosystem again. input. are struggling to keep up with wild During the world-building process, to and forest fire response due to probe and verify ideas with experts significant and fast-spreading fires. and wildfire survivors, different During the research phase, I not only creative methods have been used. All conducted interviews with people the factors which are influencing the who have experienced wildfires but preferable future and outcome are also experts from the frontlines. Also, built upon findings from the research I made a scan of the literature to find phase and repeated interviews I valuable studies regarding this topic. conducted during the project. The I discovered that the current wildfire year of the created preferable future problem is deeply rooted in the is 2025, when the world experienced social aspect of how we, as humans, massive wildfires and has arrived are placing us above nature. Nature in the pyrocence. In this preferable needs wildfires and forest fires to future, the introduction of a new have healthy forest ecosystems. season happened: the 5th season - fire Sadly humans have been suppressing season. The outcome is a proposal for wildfires for the last decades that lead how FireGuardians are conducting to the fact that we created a bigger their work and what tools they are problem than before. This project is using. It displays a new uniform, a set right in the center of this change. soft robotic enhanced exosuit, and an It challenges the paradigm of how advanced information system to plan we interact with wildfire so we as a and coordinate large-scale prescribed society can move from having a war burns. 2 3 01 INTRODUCTION 4 01 Introduction REVIEW OF TOPIC “There is no way to prepare for this; it’s incomprehensible. It feels like the apocalypse; Black, burned and decimated...a devastating emptiness... like a hydrogen bomb...the end of the world.” - Ted Silverberg, Califronian Resident and Fire Survivor (Farrell, Green, Knights, & Skeaping, 2019, pp. 48-49) Wildland fires a process by nature the single most destructive fire in to support itself and maintain the history of the state of California forests as well as create biodiversity. (Siegler, 2019, November 9th). In History showed that wildland the same year, California had four fires occur as long as humans have more devastating fires, the Carr Fire, existed. Indigenous people in North Mendocino Complex Fire, Woolsey America used wildfire in symbiosis to Fire, and the Hills Fire (Insurance maintain their land and create food Information Institute, n.d.). sources. But the more sophisticated California Department of Forestry and advanced human civilization and Fire Protection [CalFire] became, the more advanced the statistics suggest that in 2018 strategies became to contain and 1.963.101 acres (7945 km2) burned, suppress wildland fires. The US 100 fatalities happened, and 24.226 Forest Service upgraded its existing structures burned (CalFire, n.d.). But policy with the 10 o‘clock rule, which not only California was perturbed by ordered firefighters to have a wildfire wildfires. The European Union [EU] under control the next day at 10 am activated the EU Civil Protection (Struzik, 2017, p. 66). This rule had Mechanism five times to respond the effect that more and more fires to wildland fires (EU Science Hub, were suppressed and contained 2019, October 31st). Sweden had the instead of letting it burn. If we fast second-highest burnt area with over forward into the present and the year 21.605 ha (216,05 km2) in the EU, 2020, we realize that since 1930 a which is a very unusual position for a lot has changed. As the Journalist, northern country (EU Science Hub, Struzik wrote, „The difference 2019, October 31st). between what is happening now and In 2019 Brazil was devastated by what was happening in the 1980s and the wildfires in the Amazon region. earlier that megafires are occurring California had to evacuate 200.000 more often, displacing more and people, and it declared the State of more people, and reshaping forest Emergency (Insurance Information and tundra ecosystems in ways that Institute, n.d.). Late 2019 and the scientist don‘t fully understand beginning of 2020, the wildland fires (Struzik, 2017, p. 2)“. A wildfire, in Australia broke out. Australia’s which is a megafire, has to burn at wildfires killed 24 people, half a least 100.000 acres, which equals billion animals and burned an area roughly 405 km2 (Struzik, 2017, p. 2). roughly the size of West Virginia (The The USA had in the year 2018, the New York Times, 2019, January 13th). worst wildfire in a century, and it was Fig. 1: Campfire Fire Rages in California. NASA Landsat 8 Image Gallery. 2018. Background 5 Fig. 2: Alder Fire in Yellowstone National Park. Photo by Mike Lewelling, National Park Service. 2013. 6 01 Introduction PARTNERS SPONSORS During this project, a close UID did their first project with collaboration together with FLIR, them. The other research partner Umeå Fire Department, and will be residents and firefighters in Californian residents and firefighters California, which gave me feedback happened. on the initial direction and also FLIR - The Global Leader in the validation. These are either wildland Design, Manufacture, and Marketing firefighters or firefighters from city of Thermal Imaging Infrared fire departments. They are coming Cameras (FLIR, n.d.). FLIR was from different fire departments and established in 1978 to pioneer high are also working in different areas of performance and low-cost thermal the state of California. Next to that, imaging solutions for airborne a big part was talking to residents systems (FLIR, n.d.). A lot has in California who were affected by changed since then, and the relatively wildfires. This way, it was possible to young company has broadened its cover the big spectrum regarding the spectrum and “invested in numerous wildfire problem with a qualitative adjacent markets, technologies, research approach. and products to expand its sensor This collaboration was explicitly solution set and its ability to picked because the intent was service a broader set of customers that this could lead to the right (FLIR, n.d.)”. As their website combination and symbiosis. Another states, “currently, FLIR operates big part was because FLIR is in many locations around the globe operating in the field of firefighting. It and employs a total of over 3,000 is giving the project more impact and dedicated employees (FLIR, n.d.)”. depth by visualizing that companies The purpose of the other two partners are thinking about this topic and is was for research and validation. giving the project the right amount of Umeå Institute of Design [UID] has credibility. a close relationship with the local fire department. This Relationship is going back to the year 2009 when Fig. 3: Flag of Sweden, Wikipedia, 2014 Fig. 4: Flag of California, Wikipedia, 2018. Background 7 Fig. 5: Fireman K2 Camera, FLIR, n.d. Fig. 6: FLIR Logo, FLIR, n.d. Fig. 7: Umeå Kommun Logo, Umeå Kommun, n.d. Fig. 8: Umeå Institute of Design Logo, Umeå University, n.d. 8 Background 01 SOCIETAL IMPACT 9 01 SUSTAINABLE FUTURE Wildfires are a disaster for us humans but also natural. They are essential for nature and occur in normalcy in regular time intervals. For us humans, they cause devastation, but for the environment, it is the key to new life. New plants can grow after wildfires happened, similar to a phoenix who is rising out of ash. Society is slowly changing their habits to a more sustainable life to fight anthropogenic climate effects. At the same time, we try to adjust us to a sustainable lifestyle, and we have to allow nature to be lasting itself and not suppress it.
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