Wildsmoke: Forest Fire and Our Senses in the North, 1911-1961

Wildsmoke: Forest Fire and Our Senses in the North, 1911-1961

Wildsmoke examines the history of transient wildfire smoke in the northern hemisphere as part of past and continuing environmental change. The project traces smoke across political and disciplinary borders. It implicates national and regional climate change policy, especially issues of social equity and environmental justice in areas of Europe most affected by smoke seasons. The work offers increased understanding and control over a subject that has been difficult to grasp while positioning the researcher at the influential intersection between academic and government work. The unprecedented scale and frequency of wildfire in the northern hemisphere has made smoke a seasonal occurrence in skies around the world. In 2018, ash drifted from fires in northwestern Canada into northern Europe, altering forecasts on both continents, settling in Antarctic ice, and accelerating glacial melt rates. Although climate change has exacerbated smoke events in the twenty-first century, smoke seasons lie within a longer history of human-smoke interaction (wild and domestic) stretching back into deep time. Wildsmoke analyses this accumulated history to draw lessons for the present. My research frames smoke seasons as part of a long and dynamic relationship with smoke which has changed over time and is responsive to the nuances of social, political, and economic history. Understanding the way our relationships with smoke have been built over time is important because smoke is a form of slow environmental violence. Smoke policy must be proactive about managing smoke and its impacts on landscapes and bodies. Smoke is unevenly distributed by wind, vegetation, humidity, and individual vulnerability. A humanistic approach is necessary because the ways in which the bodily and ecological burdens of smoke fall are often determined by socio-political factors. Smoke is not neutral, and has historically impacted some groups more severely than others.