Getting animated about wildfire

Editor
October 14, 2025
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This is what happens when you let a wildfire researcher tell an undergraduate animation class his Big Ideas about the future of fire in our world.

University of Melbourne’s Dr Hamish Clarke dropped into the students at nearby RMIT University and inspired them to translate his wildfire research into a set of visual animations.

The outcome of this collision of science and art provides a refreshing way of communicating complex scientific ideas with easily understood graphics and narrative, to a range of audiences including local communities or schools.

Lecturer Scarlet Sykes Hesterman led the project. “I saw this as a great opportunity for my third-year students to take on a creative and meaningful challenge; adapting complex scientific concepts into visual storytelling,” she said.

“I have a strong interest in ecology and the environmental sciences, so Hamish’s proposal was both exciting and fascinating. We quickly discovered a shared passion for the intersection of science and art, and for exploring how these fields can communicate information and ideas through new approaches.

“The resulting short videos can be viewed as stand-alone works or presented together as a mini-series. We found that the students responded enthusiastically to the brief and its themes. For many, it was their first experience working with a real client, and they were intrigued by the real-world implications of Hamish’s research.”

Roll the Credits!

Lecturers

Scarlet Sykes Hesterman and Juliet Miranda Rowe

Students

Fire is Cultural

Ariel Budiman, Suzie Le, Bridie Vincent

with Indigenous cultural burning guidance and feedback from Oliver Costello at Jagun Alliance