Science Communication
Visualizing the Data
Untold stories in a landscape of wildfire
There’s something satisfying about seeing a project come together. Whether it has been something in the works for years, or an idea I had while drinking a pot of coffee way too late in the evening, I tend to always have several projects and ideas I am crafting. This week I’ve been playing with fire and hoping it results in something amazing.
Staring Into the Flames
There’s something inviting about staring into a well built fire. I find myself watching the flames as they dance around the logs, affected by even the slightest breeze. I can spend most of the evening watching them as I listen to my friends and fellow grad students tell stories. Tonight though, I’m looking for inspiration.
I had just been given an assignment. I needed to find a way to turn data about fire into something visual and artistic. This sort of data visualization is incredibly important to connect audiences with the numbers in meaningful ways. My problem is myself. I am the kind of person who wants to make something unique. I could draw something or simply make a map, but over time I’ve learned that if I don’t buy into my own projects they rarely turn out well.
So that left me here, staring into fire hoping to ignite some inspiration.
Recognizing the Inferno
Funnily enough it was a comment about COVID-19 that stoked my inspirational fire. As I write this, it has been about one year since quarantine lockdowns were beginning in the United States. I’ve heard 2020 described as a raging dumpster fire, and maybe it was that memory that reminded me how the year started: A continent on fire.
January 2020 began the new decade with an unprecedented number of brushfires consuming Australia. These fires claimed the lives of 33 people, destroyed over 3,000 homes, and burned over 17 million hectares of land. Those numbers are heavy to read, even as someone who lives on the opposite side of the planet.
In the past year, there have been numerous stories and discussions about the losses faced by this event, even amidst the other challenges people faced throughout 2020. One story that stuck out to me was threat these fires posed to Australian Wildlife. I can still picture the stories about Australian wildlife, as panicked and affected as the humans they lived near.
Stories of Fire
As I remembered this continental event, I knew I wanted to focus my data visualization project on wildlife and wildfire even as I wrestled with the worry about focusing on something other than the tragedy of lost lives, homes, and livelihoods. I also struggled with the understanding that this is not my story to tell. I am an American, I’ve never even been to Australia, and this is an Australian story.
So I urge you to take this visual representation with a grain of salt, knowing that I am not its owner, merely a bystander hoping this story is one that people will want to know.
Creating a Visualization
I took my data from a document titled “A Provisional list of animals requiring urgent management intervention”. This document details 119 Australian species of wildlife drastically impacted by the 2020 wildfires. I searched for a number of North American resources hoping to find similar documents detailing impacted species in our own wildfires, but while we in the US monitor wildfires impacts on land and people, we don’t monitor impacts on wildlife beyond general ecological affects.
This was a disturbing revelation for me because many of the Australian species on their list are endangered and it left me curious as to how many might be on American lists if they were recorded. Understanding all this left me little choice but to focus on this Australian wildfire event.
So armed with 119 species I began cutting tree cookies to represent them and got to work. The document gratefully informed me that there were seven animal classes affected, so I settled on seven tree cookies.
Each tree cookie consisted of one animal class: Fish, Amphibian, Reptile, Mammal, Bird, Crustacean, and Insect. The image I crafted on each cookie is a silhouette of an endangered species endemic to Australia and affected by the fires. The images were created by burning gunpowder to cause a high heat sear across the wood, representing the high intensity burns charring the landscape.
The rings were created using wood-burning tools and follow the natural ring growth of the tree I used. Every full ring represents 5 species impacted by the fires. It was initially surprising to learn how many aquatic species were affected by these fires, but on reflection, the disturbance to water PH from runoff after the fires will have drastic affects on animals relying on fresh water.
Once I finished marking the wood, I sealed it and called the project complete. I hope it’s as moving and revealing to other people as it is to me.
So What?
I could say this is simply a project for a class, but the truth is this project is reveals an aspect of wildfire that worries me for my own home country. There are 360 threatened and endangered species located in California, Oregon, and Washington. Severe wildfires are a growing concern among everyone on the west coast where these wildfires threaten and destroy lives each year. I am now aware of 360 species also threatened by unmanaged wildfires.
This project has revealed a new perspective on the high intensity wildfires each summer could bring. I’ll be the first to admit this is not a problem that can be solved in a day or even in a year. As someone slowly getting used to living in wildfire country though; and as a person passionate about wildlife as well as human life, I can commit to working harder to prevent and mitigate wildfires for the benefit of all.
But how do we do that? The first thing we need to do is learn. We need to take time to understand the ecology of wildfires in our areas and what they mean for our surroundings. Sites like Idaho Firewise are great for understanding how fires form, and how to prepare and live among fires. We also nee to take time to understand fire ecology and how fires help and harm the local flora and fauna. These sound like tall orders, but in reality, they aren’t much more than an hour of research and networking into your own local community to learn about fire risk in your area.
Finally, we can begin to consider the voices affected by wildfire but unable to broadcast their stories, the animals and people who slip through the cracks but play important roles in the fires on our landscape and in the future.
