Una fotografía del incendio de Palisades (enero de 2025). Foto: California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection

The increase in the frequency and intensity of fires in different parts ofthe world has prompted experts to suggest that we may have entered a new epoch.

In ancient Greek the element Pyro meant ‘fire,’ hence words like ‘pyromaniac’ or ‘pyroclast,’ the latter being the name for the solid material a volcano releases when it erupts (klastós means “broken into pieces”). And like ‘Anthropocene’ – similarly coined from Greek roots (ánthrôpos, that is, “human,” and kainós, “new”) to expresse the immeasurable degree to which humans have impacted on the terrrestrial climate – the term ‘Pyrocene’ has begun to be used to highlight the increase in the frequency and intensity of fires in very different parts of the world. The recent blazes in California are a terrible example…

Arquitectura Viva already disseminated the term coined by Stephen Pyne, Pyrocene, in the 2021 article All Fires the Fire.

El Cultural. Del Antropoceno al Piroceno: la Tierra en combustión