The Peshtigo Horror was the deadliest fire in the history of the United States. A huge cyclonic firestorm burned through the logging town of Peshtigo Wisconsin. It destroyed over a million acres of timber and in a period of just one hour, leveled every structure in the town and killed 1500 of its 2000 inhabitants. It had the ironic fate of starting in 1871 at almost the exact same moment as the famous Chicago Fire. While the Chicago fire resulted in a fraction of the mortalities, the burning of historic buildings and the proximity of the national press infrastructure resulted in the Peshtigo Horror, some 250 miles away and driven by the same weather system, being largely unreported.

 
I am so moved by the amazing cyclones that so often march out of the Burning Man. The way they morph from fire storm to dust devil, carrying the ambers and heat and reflecting the light of the flames as they cool and evaporate. As I have shown my family my video of those moments, we have all been carried away to another amazing event in our lives
We live in Topanga Canyon, a wooded pass, northwest of Los Angeles, through the Santa Monica Mountains, connecting the San Fernando Valley with the Pacific Ocean. In 1994 we had a tremendous brush fire race through our community, miraculously leaving it almost untouched physically. Downwind of us in Malibu though, hundreds of homes were destroyed. Huge whirling firestorms engulfed huge luxurious homes in seconds
So many times that week I found my self and my children standing, at 3 or 4 o-clock in the morning, next to a shifting assortment of our neighbors and their children, all watching in awe; in utter amazement at the indescribable beauty and frightening horror of the flames moving across the glowing hillsides.

The only other time in my life when I have had that the same sense of timelessness and communality has been at Burning Man. The connections between those towering cyclonic firestorms we watched rip through our chaparral and the graceful dust devils has had me pondering coriolis for years. The winds off the Pacific, the waves and the clouds; the ocean currents and jet streams of the whole fluid corona of our dear planet, all whisper and sigh with this same voice.

I work as an artist but was trained as a scientist. I attempted to explain the phenomenon of the fire cyclones to some of my friends. But to most of them, any effort to deconstruct or analyze what they had felt was miraculous, would diminish its power. I respect that sentiment. But, one of the major themes in my work has been the exposure or the mundanity of the miraculous, a process which, for me at least, has succeeded at times in elevating the petty details of my life into the sacred.

To put this magic under the thumb of a crude technology is to reclaim it from the intangible and make it part of our earth; not some thin artifact of heaven or powerful machines, momentarily manifested in our shabby world. A cyclonic firestorm can be created at will with a simple device that magnifies the largely unnoticeable coriolis effect, and is powered by a just couple of people walking slowly in a circle.

If you too wish to be spared an explanation that will spoil your fun, then skip the next paragraph, and just trust that I can indeed control these forces, and prepare to be amazed by the sight of the thing.

As the cool air is drawn in to replace the rising air heated by a fire, coriolis requires it to travel in a spiral path as it is constantly turned away from its linear route by the rotation of the earth (which at the latitude of Black Rock City has a ground speed of about 750 mph). This curving path not only causes the air to be accelerated over a longer period of time, but also gives it an angular momentum that also results in increasing velocity as the circumference of its path decreases (think spinning skater and bathtub drain cyclone).

The increased air velocity force-feeds more oxygen to the fire, which causes it to burn more quickly which generates more heat which draws in more air, which is accelerated more forcefully until a roaring firestorm (or dust devil or tornado, typhoon or hurricane) is born.

Simulating the rotation of the earth with a large slowly turning turntable will amplify the coriolis effect. A rough surface and a porous perimeter barrier create a rotating air mass; providing the surrounding air is relatively still (certainly not the norm on the playa, but a common enough event). As the air makes it way to a fire burning in center of the device, it will be accelerated in the same way as described above. Eventually, the small source of flame will “miraculously” grow into a large, full scale fire cyclone standing in the middle of the turntable.


DESCRIPTION:

The turntable will be made from stretched Astroturf, surrounded by a white picket fence to help isolate the air mass. The pristine green of the Astroturf and the white pickets evoke images of the mythic and perfectly planned apple pie America.

In the center will stand a short but traditional Burning Man Fire Barrel, whose rusty plasma cut edges evoke images of the embraced chaos and the rebirthed America of Black Rock City. The 40 foot diameter turntable will be rotated by a group of people slowly pulling handles as they walk arounbd.

Beneath the fire barrel will be a surplus brake rotor and wheel bearing that will form the hub of a large wheel. Twelve 10 ft. long 2 by 4’s will form the perimeter ring, and be joined by a 6 by ¼ by 1 inch strap of steel. 20 ft. spokes of ¼ inch pencil rod will have six inches of threads cut on their each end, which will be laced through 12 vents in the brake rotor. The outer end will be tensioned by a nut against a hole in the joint strap, so that like a bicycle wheel, the whole apparatus can be tensioned into a rigid disk.

The rim will be supported by a series of supermarket cart casters mounted beneath each joint of the rim. Large triangles of Astroturf will be stapled to a plywood ring surrounding the fire barrel, and stretched taut, then stapled to the 2 by 4 rim, allowing 2 inches of overlap along the radial seams. 6 ft tall 1 by 3 pine pickets will be screwed onto the rim on 8 in. centers, and joined 9 inches below their points by a horizontal 8 ft. 1x3. The barrel will be loaded with flammable material, probably scrap wood in a pool of white gas.

I estimate that this could produce an approximately 30’ high fire cyclone. This is a science experiement as well, modifications may need to be made to acheive the effect, and failure is an option. But success will seem like magic. That such a gentle action can create such a vuiolent result, is the remarkable paradox of the collective unfolding of our dear existance.


COSTS
Material:
Astroturf..........100 sq yds @ $8/yd... .....$800
Pencil rod.........240 lin ft @ $0.25/ft. . ....$80
DF 2x4.............12 @ 10’...@$6 each.....$72
#2 pine 1x3........60 @ 8’....@$3 each....$180
¾” plywood.........1 @ 4x8....@$25..........$25
Rotor and hub............................................$50
Barrel..........................................................$20
Fasteners...................................................$45
Casters.....................12 @ $5...................$60
Fuel.......................20 gal.....@ $5/gal.......$100


Sub Total:...................................................$1432


Labor and Transportation........................$1500

GRAND TOTAL.........................................$2932