Tom Thomson's Fire-Swept Hills 1915

What might have been going through Tom's mind when he viewed the destruction of the forest fire? His painting transformed the devastation into a thing of beauty - something that would take nature a century to rebuild. 

Sadly in the "21st Century of Fire", this painting could have been done almost anywhere in Canada. The 2001 Chisholm Wildfire started the century with a fire beyond biblical proportions reaching into the stratosphere. From "Fire Weather" a 2023 nonfiction book by John Vaillant:

"The energy released during the (Chisholm) fire's peak, seventeen-hour run was calculated to be that of seventeen, one-megaton hydrogen bombs. or about four Hiroshima bombs a minute." 

If one does just a bit of math, the destructive force of the Chisholm Wildfire just during its peak was equivalent to more than 4000 Hiroshima bombs with that measure of devastation from yet another "Great War". Few people have probably heard of the Chisholm wildfire which destroyed ten homes in rural central Alberta. People would be well aware of Chisholm if just one Hiroshima bomb had been dropped there - but 4000 is beyond the human capacity to fathom. More people are likely aware of the 2016 wildfire which torched Fort McMurray. But there have been many other fires - too many to describe here. 

Twenty-three years into the Century of Fire, the wildfire situation remains catastrophic and getting worse. A couple of 2023 headlines follow to set that stage:

"Wildland fire experts have described Canada's 2023 fire season as record-breaking and shocking. Over the course of a fire season that started early and ended late, blazes have burned an estimated 18.4 million hectares—an area roughly the size of North Dakota."

"Canada’s 2023 wildfire season is the most destructive ever recorded, and it’s not over yet. By September 5, more than 6,132 fires had torched a staggering 16.5 million hectares of land. To put that in perspective, that’s an area larger than Greece and more than double the 1989 record. Normally, an average of 2.5 million hectares of land are consumed in Canada every year. And unlike previous years, the fires this year were widespread, from the West Coast to the Atlantic provinces, and the North. By mid-July, there were 29 mega-fires, each exceeding 100,000 hectares." 

Back in 1915 World War One, the so-called first "Great War" was raging in Europe as nations battled nations. Tom's artist friends had dispersed to participate in that conflict in one way or another. Tom's closest art friend, A.Y. Jackson enlisted in the Canadian Army's 60th battalion on June 14th, 1915. Soon after he reached the front he was wounded at the Battle of Sanctuary Wood in June 1916. 

Frankly, Tom was alone in the park where mankind was battling nature with similar destructive results. On the positive side, Thomson was finding his own, unique artist voice while recording the mayhem of the forest industry. Tom also painted the weather. 

Fire-Swept Hills Summer or Fall 1915
Oil on composite wood-pulp board 9 1/8 x 10 1/2 in.
(23.2 x 26.7 cm) - 1915.72, Tom's paint box size. 

Tom employed the "rules of thirds" on this small panel but this time, the sky only occupied the top of the painting. As you will see, even though the "beauty" of the devastation of the forest fire was his subject, he still included enough hints in the sky to reveal the meteorology of the day. 

The following close-up view of the top third of  "Fire-Swept Hills" reveals the details of the brushwork and the structure of the clouds. The long "dry" strokes used limited amounts of paint and arched from low on the horizon to end at the bright, front-lit cloud edge. 

The following graphic describes a low-tech and old-school approach to diagnosing lines in the sky. I actually kept a plastic pocket protector full of coloured pencils and pens in my shirt pocket. That was a practice I started at the Brockville Collegiate and Vocational School (aka High School) and it persisted through Queens University and even into the Atmospheric Environment Service, my first and only career (aside from art). One never knew when something interesting would present itself and I wanted to be ready. My wife who I met in grade thirteen, married me despite my obvious eccentricities. 

This material is unlikely to appear in any meteorological textbook. The science was the subject of frequent fireside chats within the Weather Centres concerning the forecast concerns of the day. The operational team would gather around the main weather display system and we would interactively discuss what the satellite, radar and various weather maps revealed about the current weather situation. Unknowns and uncertainties and their impacts on the forecast were assessed. Each member of the team would have a task and an understanding of what needed to get done. There were no marshmallows or an actual fire in the Weather Centre but it was still fun and creative. 

The actual atmosphere, conceptual models and satellite imagery provided the material that I present in these blogs. The techniques were essential to better comprehend the dynamic physical processes at play in the atmospheric ocean. Thoughtful analysis and diagnosis of the real atmosphere must lead to improved prognosis. Anyway, that's my story and I am sticking to it as every geek should. 

I finished my 36-year meteorological career with COMET in Boulder, Colorado and together we published a lot of the material. There was still much to do when time ran out... I guess it will never stop. The real world and nature continue to inspire. 

There is a lot of meteorology in this graphic but you need only focus on the cloud bank 
at the front edge and the anticyclonic curvature of that portion of the warm conveyor belt.

To recap, it was mid-morning and Tom was in the weather system's warm sector, looking northerly at the warm frontal cloud. He was under the anticyclonic companion of the warm conveyor belt (WCB). The cyclonic companion of the dry conveyor belt and the active portion of the cold front was approaching from the west. That veering wind shift was probably hours away as Tom was positioned on the leading edge of the warm conveyor belt and the storm. We know where Tom was in relation to the weather but the scarred landscape of the devasted forest could have been almost anywhere in Algonquin Park but was probably somewhere close to Mowat. 

The above analysis does not dwell on the contents of the fire-swept hills. Frankly, the foreground was a bit of a mysterious jumble and I dared not go there in detail. The white areas in Tom's painting could be ash, bare granite or even snow. Without some better hints from Thomson, it is impossible to know for certain. The following image of a fire-swept terrain near Kelowna in 2023 shows white rocks where no soils remain quite similar to the painting.  

I was struck by the colours in Tom's painted foreground! The front-lit nature of the scene was guaranteed. Also, it seemed that the dark lines, whether they be shadows or fallen trees stretched to the northwest consistent with the sun being in the eastern sky. 

Now for some related science about forests. Old-growth forests are vital and irreplaceable. They have essential roles in wildlife habitat, species diversity, carbon storage, and very surprising to some, the water cycle. Please let me briefly explain. 

With climate change during the Century of Fire, the importance of the water cycle is becoming even more crucial. The forests actually recycle the water deposited orographically on the mountains of the West Coast. The westerlies lose all of their moisture within just a few hundred kilometres of the eastern shores of the Pacific. Without the forests, the water cycle would end there!

Each tree in a forest transpires hundreds of litres of water into the atmosphere every day. A mature beech tree typically yields 500 litres a day. A large oak tree can transpire 150,000 litres per year (about 400 litres a day). In addition, depending on the soil, a square metre of forest can capture and store 200 litres of water. The result is that the air associated with a forest tends to be more moist and cooler - both good things in this era of climate catastrophe. 

Use your Coriolis Hand to get a sense of the circulation
by pointing the Coriolis Thumb upward at the "L" to
represent the rising air.

Air laden with water vapour is less dense than dry air and rises buoyantly. Ascending air creates a lower pressure at the surface. Air rushes in at the surface to replace the rising air and those winds are deflected by the Coriolis force. The result is a cyclonic circulation of weather. Essentially, a forest can create its own low-pressure weather system which is moved by the westlies. An intact boreal forest allows the moisture from the west coast to actually leapfrog across Canada, being recycled several times in the precipitation-transpiration process.

The burnt forest that Tom observed has had time to regenerate into an important ecosystem. Natural fire can even help to rejuvenate the forests. Many trees including the Jack pine and black spruce have serotinous cones that only release their seeds after a fire. This biology gives some species the first access to emerge and pioneer the fire-swept landscape.  

Forests inside the green outline span the width of Canada from the Rockies on the west coast to Newfoundland in the east.
Without the forests, the water supplied by the Pacific could not extend past the Rockies.

However, like so many global resources, forests and nature in general are at war with industrial society. Harvesting of the Earth's resources continues to exponentially escalate and a few individuals are getting very wealthy indeed. The unsustainable demands of an extraction-based economy will continue to undermine the delicate checks and balances of nature until something breaks. The tipping points are already falling like dominoes. Climate change and the sixth mass extinction of the Century of Fire are simply symptoms of this crisis.

"Fire-Swept Hills" as it would have
appeared in Tom's paint box.

Inscription verso: 

• u.l., in ink, Very few of Tom Thomsons / sketches were signed. but / there is no question about this / being genuine. A.Y. Jackson; 
• l.r., in graphite on torn label, MELLORS FINE ARTS / LIMITED / RA. ../ Marc.../ 19...; 
• in graphite, R. A. Mackenzie [sic] Thomson Collection @ Art Gallery of Ontario 

Provenance:

• Dr. J.M. MacCallum, Toronto Mellors Fine Arts, Toronto 
• W.P. Mckenzie, Toronto 
• R.A. Laidlaw Private Collection, 
• Toronto Sotheby's, Toronto, 6 May 1991, lot 110 
• Private collection, Toronto
•  Thomson Collection @ Art Gallery of Ontario

And that is the story of Tom Thomson's "Fire-Swept Hills".  The weather only occupied the top third of the panel, but sufficient clues were still clearly hidden in those brush strokes. The weather forecast for the next day would have been readily devised in a fireside or campfire chat. The forecast for the next century was also predictable unless mankind learned how to respect nature. The science is clear:

"The long-range forecast is for a hotter climate with a fragmented, ragtag natural places with variable extreme heat and drought with the risk of fire and poor air quality."

Tom might have been lamenting the loss of the forest, facilitated by the actions and disrespect of man. The Mowat chip yard was full of the discarded remains of the Canoe Lake forest. We will never know.

Thankfully, Tom also saw natural beauty and painted those broken and burnt branches as well as the debris discarded along the way. His friend A.Y Jackson was adamant that this was a bonafide Thomson original even though it was not signed and does not bear the scars of the estate stamp. 

The takeaway good news is that if humans permit it, nature can heal itself just like those "fire-swept hills" near Canoe Lake probably have. Dramatic change must start immediately if the globe is to be saved during this Century of Fire.

Warmest regards and keep your paddle in the water,

Phil Chadwick

PS: Tom Thomson Was A Weatherman - Summary As of Now contains all of the entries to date. 

PSS: Should you wish to have Creative Scene Investigation applied to one of Thomson's works that I have not yet included in this Blog, please let me know. It may already be completed but needs to be posted. In any event, I will move your request to the top of the list. If you made it this far, thanks for reading! There is a lot of science in this small panel and I wanted to cover most of it...

PSSS: May I recommend some reading to provide background for this blog. Being informed is a prerequisite for having an opinion. Critical thought and an open mind are essential to navigating the often biased and intentionally misleading information willingly circulated by special interest groups. 

• Books by Peter Wohlleben, a German forester and author provide terrific information about trees, forests and industrial forestry practices.
• "Fire Weather - The Making of A Beast" by John Vaillant published in 2023 reveals the tragic truth about industrial society in Canada.
• "Bright Green Lies" by Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith and Max Wilbery published in 2021 exposes the hypocrisy of an industrial, extraction-based society.