Pyrocumulonimbus Super Outbreak: Aftermath of the Black Summer Fires, Australia 2019–2020
Pyrocumulonimbus Super Outbreak is a photographic study by Alan McFetridge made during fieldwork across fire-affected regions of eastern Australia in early 2020. Centred on the Black Summer fires and the extraordinary fire-driven thunderstorms of December 2019, the project examines how extreme fire now moves between land, atmosphere, climate and public memory.
Alan McFetridge, Aftermath of a Pyrocumulonimbus near Bega, New South Wales, 2020
From Pyrocumulonimbus Super Outbreak: Aftermath of the Black Summer Fires, Australia 2019–2020.
© Alan McFetridge
Project Statement:
Pyrocumulonimbus Super Outbreak takes its title from a defining feature of Australia’s Black Summer fires: fire-driven thunderclouds formed when extreme heat, smoke, wind and atmospheric instability rose from intense fires. These clouds, known as pyrocumulonimbus or PyroCb events, revealed fire not only as a force moving across the land, but as an atmospheric event.
Between 29 and 31 December 2019, thirty-two PyroCb events were documented in what scientists have described as a super outbreak. In early 2020, I travelled approximately 5,000 km through fire-affected regions from Queensland to Victoria, recording the aftermath of this threshold. Near Bega, New South Wales, the landscape carried the visible traces of fires that had exceeded ordinary categories of bushfire.
Fire in Australia | Exhibition Feature: Wonder & Dread
12 Dec 30 Jan 2021 at Shoalhaven Regional Gallery, NSW, Australia
Alan McFetridge (1971 - )
The River Derwent and Hobart Town, Lutruwita (c1831- 2019)
Pigment ink print
Diptych: 32.6 × 86 - Edition of 6 + 2AP
First Printed by Alan McFetridge in 2020
Left: John Glover (1767 - 1849)
The River Derwent and Hobart Town c1831
oil
51.5 x 71.5
Purchased with funds provided by the Art Foundation of Tasmania, the Sir James Plimsoll Bequest, Sir John Cameron, Mrs G F Davies, Mr C H Grant, Mr Roderick O’Connor, Coles Myer Ltd, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Foundation Ten, the Friends of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, anonymous benefactors and public donations, 1990.Collection: Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery AG5458
Printed from a digital file courtesy of Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.
pigment ink print
32.6 × 45.5
Printed by Alan McFetridge in 2020
Right: Alan McFetridge (1971 - )
The River Derwent and Hobart Town , Lutruwita c2019
Pigment ink print
First printed by Alan McFetridge in 2020
The Centre for Ecological Philosophy
You can read more about the centre and what we are doing to question how the climate will change, fires will intensify and adaptation necessary and what we can do about it in a blog post here.
For further information on this project please contact the Studio
All images © Alan McFetridge