Wild Fire
A glimpse into my year long project at Zennor Head
A year ago today, the UK reached record high temperatures and more than 800 wildfires burned across the country. It was one of the worst wildfire seasons the UK has ever experienced. Reports indicate that fire services recorded 24, 316 wildfires in England last year. It’s hard to believe now, looking out of the window at the overcast sky. I hope the UK is spared another heart-breaking wildfire season this summer, but even if we are, the world has not been. Southern Europe is currently in the grips of a record-breaking heatwave, and across the world immense wildfires have been burning for months. In Canada earlier this year the fires got so bad that the smoke chocked New York City many miles south.
Wildfires are becoming more common, happening more widely, and causing more devastation than ever before. They are a basic fact of the climate catastrophe. And while these extreme weather events, so damaging to healthy ecosystems and biodiversity, still happen in greater numbers elsewhere they have clearly come full scale to the UK.
Among the 800 wildfires that burned on July 19th 2022 was a fire at Zennor Head just along the coast from me. It blanketed the area in smoke for miles around and burned for days on end. When I visited the site a week later, camera in hand, small pockets of fire were still burning, and I could feel the heat of the earth through my hiking boots. It quickly became clear that what I’d intended as a one-off visit required something more. The devastation of the fire was so great that I immediately planned a yearlong project documenting that headlands journey towards recovery. I have photographed Zennor Head once a month since July. 13 months of documenting the headland. 13 months of sun, wind, and rain. 13 months of burnt earth and the slow bloom of wildflowers. 13 months that came to an end on Monday, with my last visit.
Except the land is still recovering, still changing, still trying to heal and I don’t want this to be my last visit.
Last month I interviewed Simon Hocking, Area Ranger for the National Trust, who are guardians of the headland at Zennor. He led the fight against the fire aided by his team and the local firefighters. Hearing Simon’s stories of the fire broke my heart: his terrifying recollections of fighting against a blaze being moved by the wind in all directions, his certainty that he’d never seen a fire like, his pain at the loss of a birds nest they fought for hours to save. When I first stepped foot on the site I wept and knew just looking at it that this fire was different. That instinct was confirmed as by Simon, who told me they could see the fire burning the root systems, travelling underground, and blackening the earth above. It would appear on the far side of rocks after seeming to have gone out for days.
As Simon showed me around the site, his first visit since the fire, we looked out along the coastline and he shared the fear and responsibility they had felt to contain the fire, knowing that if it spread there were no firebreaks for miles. It could have taken huge swathes of the coastline and so they worked tirelessly, trying absolutely everything they could. They managed it, but Zennor Head was changed beyond recognition. Now Simon and his team are faced with choices about how to help the land recover, how to prevent invasive species, how to encourage biodiversity rather than a monocrop of bracken.
When I planned the project that first day, I imagined it would be easy to bring it to a close on the fire’s anniversary. I was wrong. I have 13 months of photographs. I have witnessed the slow changes the seasons have brought to this once stunning headland. The first few months of visits I cried. The smell of wet fire lingered, the landscape was empty, barely a sound of life could be heard. I imagined that the deep shock I felt would lessen over time. I was wrong about that too. A year later and the shock I feel at seeing the devastation hasn’t softened. Though I no longer cry my breath catches in my throat and my heart seems to pound. I don’t want to stop this project.
I don’t want to stop until the land is rich and glorious again. I want to record the flowers and grasses and bushes as they return to Zennor. I want to be there as the rocks are lost beneath the gorse and heather. I want to be there with my camera to witness the return of life. I want the story I tell to be that life can recover from the climate catastrophe if we give it the chance. Not pockets of life, not smatterings, or bits, but full, all encompassing, biodiverse life.
I have funded this project myself, buying film and paying for processing. I have a gallery booked for a week in November and will pay for that too. I will work out how to pay for prints. I have applied for funding multiple times and been rejected but I have ploughed on because I know this project matters. I ploughed on thinking I knew the end. But now I reach the end and it is as clear as it was on my first visit that more is still needed.
My job now is to work out what shape that more takes. Is it more monthly visits? Can I afford those? Is it seasonal visits? Would that miss too much? I don’t know yet, but I am asking the right questions, which is the foundation of creating art. While I answer them, I have months of photographs to edit, an interview to type up, and an exhibition to figure out.
In a year in which I have struggled for inspiration, struggled to remember how to play, struggled and failed to get funding, I could not be prouder of my efforts with this project. I wish it felt complete so that I could celebrate a job well done. But as it doesn’t, I will instead celebrate a full year of investigating, exploring, and truly getting to know this place and its healing scars. And I will celebrate the journey Zennor and I have left to take together.
When I see news of new wildfires burning somewhere in the world my mind now turns to Zennor, which though small in comparison to many is an example of the far larger global problem we face. My hope is that this deep and focused examination of one wildfire site will give space for a wider conversation. Though an extreme example of climate breakdown, wildfires are something the public understands. However, the long-term impact of these events is less well known, as the articles and reports we consume revolve almost exclusively around the fires themselves. As a climate artist, it is my job to create art that inspires compassion, empathy, and action. We need art to bring these disasters, and more importantly their long-term impacts, to the fore. I have been struck, during my monthly visits to Zennor Head, by the devasting speed of the destruction and the slow crawl of recovery. I truly hope that my work can contribute to changing our understanding of wildfires in the UK by offering an intimate portrait of the land and its journey back from a wildfire.
It’s a lovely project Rosie. As you say, people focus on the fire but the recovery, the transformation after devastation, is the story we humans need to hear as we face our unstable planet’s heating.
We were part owners of a house that burned in the Black Saturday bushfires north of Melbourne. We weren’t there that weekend, but the feeling of it’s obliteration and visiting the slim layer of ash, which was all that remained of our happy place, stays with me.
But things grow back, people move on. The earth heals, but it’s never the same.
Rosie, your account of Zennor brought tears to my eyes ..... and your mention of Canada brought back the Lytton fire in June 2021 .... I lived relatively near there for many years, have friends with homes there (one completely burned down, the other wasn`t touched...), and it used to have my 89 year-old father`s favourite pub.... I am in awe of your fabulous project & hope you share more of it in the future. Sending soooo much love to you ... & Finn :-) ... from Mexico. Namaste. xxxx