Case Studies Part IV: A Pyrophilic Flash Fiction Trilogy

7.3 Overview

Born of the future WUI scenarios that were described in Part III, the following flash fictions succinctly envisage the potentialities for a new WUI paradigm as aligns to the functioning of the low, mixed, and high-severity fire regimes of the landscapes within which it resides. The purpose thereof is that of providing a virtual representation of the adjacent future for which the buildings codes, as will conclude this five-part case studies series, need be fit.

7.3.1 Flash Fiction #1: Pyro-Evaders

The Flaming Stallions Fire, Yellowstone National Park, July 3rd 2030

Their smoking tails stretching all the way to the stratosphere, the wildfire’s several fronts raced like flaming stallions galloping towards fresh pastures aplenty. Rearing up mountainous slopes and kicking out innumerable embers as they went, thunderous was the sound of the, sometimes skittish, ephemeral equines’ burning hooves. Amidst the Lodgepole and other pines, ashes turned to architectural ashes and dust to disturbance dust, as from afar the region’s residents looked on. The intricacies of the wildfire’s spread tracked from within moments of its ignition, the evacuation orders had been instigated with expedience. Though homes and businesses were now burning, reassurance came in the knowledge that, in the seeds that had been sewn, futures were secured. As above The Flaming Stallions Fire had stampeded, below a mother had cradled her new-born. Her labour’s onset having coincided with that of the wildfire’s ignition, she and her partner had sought the safety of a subterranean shelter. But, the danger now passed, with their babe in arms, together they stepped out and onto the forest floor, as all about them shoots of renewal began to appear.

7.3.2 Flash Fiction #2: Pyro-Endurers

The Hope Springs Fire, Los Coyotes Reservation, September 9th 2030

Like fireflies caught in tornados, embers swirled, some furiously, others seemingly frivolously as, carried by convection, they made their ignitable way upwards, then downwards, inundating an acutely arid landscape in an inferno as they fell. But, from under the cover of a pyrocumulus cloud of already colossal proportions, the roots of both ecological and architectural recovery were already taking hold. Protected by armour of the mineral-based alluvial kind, a synthetic mycorrhizal network that connected not trees, but buildings, was pulsating as, some several inches below the surface, it processed data on the damage done to properties and their various material and structural parts. Watching from upwind some distance away, Mai looked on. Archaeological finds at the San Dieguito Complex dating her peoples’ presence in the county to the early Holocene onwards, as were her ancestors before her, respectful, not fearful, of wildfire was she. Having slipped one hand into a jean pocket, she pulled out an acorn. As she rolled it between her thumb and forefinger, she reflected on how the smooth oval nut had seeded the thoughts of which the architectural fruits were now self-replicating across the reservation.

7.3.3 Flash Fiction #3: Pyro-Resistors

The Pine Hills Fire, Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, December 7th 2030

Standing some twenty or more feet tall on a South-facing slope, though scorched and still smouldering, several hundred Coulter, Jeffrey, Sugar, and other pines, which had been planted two decades prior, had largely persisted through the wildfire. Their outline obscured by the still billowing airborne bi-products of a blaze that some had speculated would deliver the final blow for their biome, the conifers were a testament to the combustible epoch of their ancestral origin. As real-time data spanning every- known fire metric streamed to his tablet, though attending a conference some miles away, chief ranger Jack was up-to-speed with events, and relieved to see that, at least as fire-hardy as the tree species about it, his cabin would be there on his return. Although its deeply furrowed heat-reflective synthetic-bark exterior plating made it look a little odd on the outside, its grace under conflagration pressure had ingratiated it to him. Turning his attention away from his tablet and to a speaker who had taken to the stage, Jack smiled at the thought that his much-loved forest home would, quite literally, ‘live’ to see another day.

>Continue to Chapter 7 [part IV] here.

The thesis is also available in PDF format, downloadable in several parts on Academia and Researchgate.

Note that figures have been removed from the digital version hosted on this site, but are included in the PDFs available at the links above.

Citation: Sterry, M. L., (2018) Panarchistic Architecture: Building Wildland-Urban Interface Resilience to Wildfire through Design Thinking, Practice and Building Codes Modelled on Ecological Systems Theory. PhD Thesis, Advanced Virtual and Technological Architecture Research [AVATAR] group, University of Greenwich, London.