The smell of wood is first to hit my senses upon entering Walk Into Wildfire, an immersive multimedia exhibit on display at the Buellton Recreation Center.
As I walk toward the centerpiece of the exhibit—careful not to trip, as it’s the only light source in the otherwise pitch-black room—I can feel the crunch of mulch beneath my feet, like walking across a forest floor. I’m startled for a moment by a patch of red-hot, burning wood, before realizing that the embers are coming from a projector mounted on the ceiling.
At the center of the room, three large panels face one another, ablaze with projected footage of burning Central Coast hills. As smoke and flames move seamlessly from one screen to the next, I imagine the heat one would feel standing this close to a real inferno. The scene soon changes to a time-lapse. Green grass shoots up from the ash, and a rich, instrumental soundscape conjures feelings of hope and renewal.
Then it all burns again.
Walk Into Wildfire is the collaborative project of local artist Ethan Turpin, founder of the Burn Cycle Project; Jonathan Smith and Kym Cochran from The Environment Makers; and Zach Gill, the multi-instrumentalist member of Animal Liberation Orchestra and Jack Johnson’s bandmate. The Burn Cycle Project is a Santa Barbara County-based design and production service that aims to educate the public about wildfires.
“This is the sixth iteration of using fireproof camera box footage in an immersive installation,” Turpin said of his Buellton exhibit, which is on display until May 1. “This is focused on that on-the-ground wildfire experience.”
Between Turpin’s precisely edited video projections, Smith and Cochran’s eerily realistic artificial environment, and Gill’s soothing soundscape, the viewer at once witnesses the terrifying speed that a wildfire can spread and destroy, but also the way life can emerge from the ruins more resilient than before.
Turpin said the exhibit is about finding the right balance between showing and telling: educating, without being didactic.
“People do want the opportunities to confront these things that have a scary side, but that are also bigger than that,” Turpin said. “It’s sharing an experience rather than telling people in particular what to do. But there is this opportunity to learn about what we can do to be safer, and how we live with fire, by partnering with the Santa Barbara County Fire Safe Council.”
Turpin collaborated with the Fire Safe Council on a video teaching people how to create defensible spaces—buffers designed to reduce fire danger—around their homes, which premiered alongside the exhibit.
“My experience is that, when we do exhibits like this, people walk out feeling really enlivened and ready to absorb more information in a pretty special way,” Turpin said.
Nic Elmquist, a wildland fire specialist for the Montecito Fire Department and a Fire Safe Council member, said the project is particularly timely, as May marks the official start of high fire season. One of the main determinants for the severity of Santa Barbara County’s fire season are annual grasses that are more likely to burn as they become drier, a process called curing.
“What you’ll start to notice around this time is that our grasses begin to get cured. All of that is dependent on the season’s rainfall,” Elmquist said. “What’s particularly concerning this year in Santa Barbara County [is] we’re at 50 percent of what’s normal for this time of year.”
With the majority of fires in Southern California being human caused, Elmquist hopes the exhibit will inspire people to pay attention to their surroundings and actions. At the same time, Elmquist said he appreciates the Burn Cycle Project for balancing that prevention messaging with the reality that fire can be part of a necessary and natural cycle.
“Around here, in more of the chaparral shrublands, we probably are seeing too much fire. The fire return intervals are too short,” Elmquist said. “But there’s a lot of places throughout the state where the areas aren’t burning enough. They’re getting an accumulation of fuel loads, and that’s causing increased fire intensity.
“What’s cool about The Burn Cycle is it shows how the fire burns through, but then you can also see the recovery process that occurs,” he continued, “and really the beauty of nature and how fire is just a component of that.”
What’s unique about re-creating a wildfire scene is that most people outside of the firefighting community have never been so close to one—nor should they be. The exhibit takes away the dangerous parts of a fire so viewers can experience what remains: something both terrifying and sublime.
“It’s both scary and beautiful at the same time,” Turpin said. “It can be paradoxical, and life is like that.”
Highlight
• The city of Santa Maria is encouraging residents to be environmentally friendly by offering free landscape burlaps and sprinklers for city residents as part of its Go Green in the Spring promotion. “The promotion is to remind homeowners, gardeners, and landscapers to ‘go green’ in the spring by pulling weeds and collecting clippings to spruce up the landscape, plant drought-tolerant plants to conserve water, and regularly check irrigation sprinklers and outdoor faucets to address any leaks,” according to Santa Maria officials. Those interested need to contact the Utilities Department to reserve their promotion and schedule a no-contact pickup at (805) 925-0951, Ext. 7270.
Staff Writer Malea Martin wrote this week’s Spotlight. Send hot tips to spotlight@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Apr 29 – May 6, 2021.