Pyrocene

The Pyrocene, proposed by Stephen Pyne, names the fire-dominated epoch where combustion—fossil fuels, wildfires, industrial burning—defines planetary conditions. It reframes the Anthropocene through the lens of fire as both ecological process and anthropogenic driver. The Pyrocene foregrounds how human economies intensify fire beyond ecological rhythms, destabilizing climate and ecosystems. For landscape studies, it situates fire as a central agent of design, crisis, and adaptation. It is an epoch marked by the reign of flames.

/ Urška Škerl

The volume On the Side of Fire. Rites, approaches and cultivation practices in landscapes is the twenty-first edition in the “Memorie” series by the Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche (FBSR), a Treviso-based international centre for landscape studies and research, founded by Luciano Benetton in 1987, focusing on history, geography, natural and cultural heritage. Opening space for […]

/ Donielle Kaufman, Kelly Shannon

This article by Kelly Shannon and Donielle Kaufman was first published on 9 January 2018. With the recent fires around Los Angeles, we are bringing it into focus again in early 2025 as it sheds light on processes and hidden corners of the context that brought about California’s ‘wildfire epidemic’.

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Across the world, the risks of wildfires are increasing and expanding. Due to past and current human actions, we dwell in the age of fire – the Pyrocene – and the many challenges and climate adaptation questions it provokes. Exploring our past and current relationships with fire, this book speculates on the pyro futures yet […]

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