Wildfire Recovery Video
For this video project, I focused on the Post Falls Community Forest, a location threatened by a fast-growing wildfire last year. Thanks to rapid response, supported by an uncommonly large amount of aerial resources, the fire was controlled and suppressed in an aggressively fast timeline. The smoke, aerial support, and proximity to large urban communities drew a LOT of public attention. This timing aligns with an abundance of federal funding available through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) specifically for wildfire mitigation. The U.S. Forest Service, the Idaho Department of Lands, and the City of Post Falls come together quickly to draw up a proposal securing about $200,000 in funds for an immediate hazardous fuels removal and forest health restoration project.
The outcome of this project was tri-fold. In a matter of five months, the community gained access to a severely burned area, the forest became significantly healthier with more significant opportunities for wildlife habitat, and neighbors began asking about how to imitate the same wildfire mitigation work on their own properties. I have been working with a cross-boundaries group to continue developing this success story and sharing it across northern Idaho. This video served as an awesome opportunity to develop the narrative and explore media options I had never had the skills to utilize.
The storyboard exercise helped me refine the narrative that I wanted to tell. I wrote it from the perspective of a kid exploring the forest or a firefighter visiting the post-burn site. I decided to approach the narrative from my own perspective as a recreationalist and fire investigator who is also invested in the positive outcome of the post-fire recovery. Because of the amount of publicity surrounding the fire at the time of occurrence, there was plenty of footage to integrate into my video. I chose the recorded news clips because of their higher quality compared to the clips I found on social media platforms like TikTok. The news clips also included a timestamp and footer line with some context to the content. This was convenient as a professional addition to the full video.
Final Draft Revisions
I received valuable feedback from my peers on improving the draft attached below. There was a 14-second black screen at the end that I had not recognized and needed to be trimmed out. This section served as a helpful placeholder for the closing credits, which I added to my final draft. There were also a few audio transitions in which I faded in and out to improve the flow of the video. I still believe there are further opportunities to improve this video, including a personalized. I look forward to the opportunity to utilize this video in my final degree portfolio and future professional projects for wildfire risk mitigation education.
