In 2015 Burn Cycle began producing immersive video installations, giving viewers a proxy view inside wild-land fire. Multiple projections of fireproof camera footage, with its sound, allows for an otherwise unsurvivable point of view as fire rapidly changes a landscape, followed by time-lapse sequences documenting months of green, post-fire regrowth. These exhibits have allowed residents in fire-prone areas to viscerally and safely confront the possibility and ecological presence of fire. The intensity of the experience opens up conversations and interest in learning more. Developments of a "pop-up" screen system and custom “projection mapping” now allows us to reach both fire trainee and civilian audiences with mobile exhibits.
Pictured: Walk Into Wildfire Bozeman, Montana, 2016. Installation by Ethan Turpin and Jonathan PJ Smith, with footage recorded by Ian Grob of the US Forest Service.
Firefighters have an immersive experience of wildland fire within the “Walk Into Wildfire” community exhibit, sponsored by the City of Buellton and Santa Barbara County Fire Safe Council, 2021.
New versions of “Walk Into Wildfire” include time-lapse of post-fire growth by Dave Elkins, documenting adaptive regeneration and patterns of change across a variety of species.
The Burn Cycle Project exhibited new fireproof camera footage and post-fire time-lapses in partnership with the Santa Barbara County Fire Safe Council at the 2023 Wildfire Resilience Expo in Lompoc, CA. This footage was gathered from prescribed burns around the US as well as landscapes recovering from fire in Santa Barbara County over several months.
Post-fire growth time-lapse sequence in "Walk Into Wildfire", Buellton, 2021
From April 24 - May 1, 2021, we exhibited a special version of “Walk Into Wildfire” for communities in on the Central Coast of California in a large school gymnasium. In order to bring the wildland inside, we projection-mapped video of smoldering embers onto burnt logs and across a “forest floor” of mulch on a protective sub-straight. Visitors entered a path that lead them to the large video space.
The conifer forest section of Walk Into Wildfire with its mobile exhibit structure.
The traveling pop-up version of “Walk Into Wildfire” allows people to confront and learn about wildland fire in the setting of their own community. Deborah Oropallo photo
“Walk Into Wildfire - Mobile System” is designed for public outreach and fire trainee users. Support comes from Max Moritz, UC Cooperative Extension Wildfire Specialist and SERI-Fire at UCSB Bren School of Environmental Science and Management. Installation support from Jonathan PJ Smith. MB Maher photo
“Walk Into Wildfire”, produced as part of “Burn Cycle: Living With Fire” with the SERI-Fire team and UCSB Bren School at the Community Arts Workshop in Santa Barbara, CA, 2019. The addition of light-weight rear projection screens allows for pop-up exhibits in fire-prone communities.
"Walk Into Wildfire", produced for the US Forest Service Region 5 office in Vallejo, California, 2017. Installation by Ethan Turpin and Jonathan PJ Smith, with footage recorded by Ian Grob of the US Forest Service.
"Entering Wildfire", produced for UC Santa Barbara's Bren School of Environmental Science and Management in 2015. Installation by Ethan Turpin, Jonathan PJ Smith, and Justin Harmon, with footage recorded by Ian Grob of the US Forest Service.
"Entering Wildfire" was first shown to fire professionals, academics, and educational donors in 2015 at University California Santa Barbara.
Custom designed scroll-screens create a layered dimension to a smoldering forest in “Entering Wildfire”.
"Walk Into Wildfire" allows people of all ages to have a safe experience of fire's elemental beauty, transformative power, and real world hazards. Here seen in Bozeman, Montana.
Using Ethan Turpin’s recordings of structure fires in the wildland urban interface, Jonathan PJ Smith mapped video projections onto the architecture of an existing structure and the surrounding trees. Confronting this simulation can give viewers an opportunity to learn about how to prevent structure fires from starting and spreading. “Burning House” was commissioned for the “Natural Discourse” exhibit at UC Berkeley’s Sagehen Creek Field Station. MB Maher photo
Projection-mapped “Embers” on an oak tree in the wildland urban interface. Mobile video technology allows Burn Cycle Project to bring pop-up experiences to residents in their own environments.
Visitors encountering the glowing “Embers” often reach to check for heat. To add an uncanny element to “Walk Into Wildfire” at a US Forest Service exhibit in Vallejo, CA, Ethan Turpin and Jonathan PJ Smith arranged burnt branches and carefully mapped video onto their surfaces.