By Siti Muinah 
By Pranavi Aourpally
Special to Nightingale / Data Visualization Society
Main Facts: The Intersection of Digital Growth and Wildfire Realities
In the modern energy landscape, data design is rarely just about making charts look sleek; it is about translating alarming, large-scale systemic trends into actionable insights. Every day, professionals working at the intersection of power grids and software face a daunting challenge: soaring demand forecasts, widening grid expansion curves, and the invisible physical tolls of our digital habits.
However, raw data possesses a well-documented vulnerability. A number buried within an extensive PDF report remains flat and sterile; a high-level chart featured in a corporate slide deck is frequently met with polite nods before being promptly forgotten. This disconnect is what data professionals refer to as the "empathy gap"—the profound, dangerous space between what empirical data objectively states and what a human being actually feels in response.
Operating out of San Francisco, energy data designer Pranavi Aourpally confronts this gap daily. Surrounded by the tangible geography of wildfire country, she recognizes that energy infrastructure and wildland fire risks are not isolated phenomena. Instead, they share the same physical spaces and are bound by direct causal loops.
As global climate change alters weather patterns, the world is witnessing longer "burn windows" and a drastic escalation in the frequency of extreme weather events. These shifts are far from benign natural cycles. They represent a compounding feedback loop where surging digital demand—driven heavily by the exponential rise of AI data centers—creates an unprecedented physical burden on a warming planet.
As electrical grids expand aggressively to feed power-hungry artificial intelligence infrastructure that now consumes energy at a scale rivaling entire nation-states, more transmission lines are forced to run through terrain that grows drier with every passing season. While the statistical correlations are clear, bridging the gap to make everyday citizens—or even casual users executing a simple AI prompt—feel the true environmental stakes of their digital footprint has remained a persistent challenge.
Chronology: From Academic Theory to Interactive Spark
The Northeastern Foundation
Pranavi Aourpally’s journey toward solving this communication crisis began at Northeastern University, where her studies in Information Design and Data Visualization instilled a foundational philosophy: data should be treated not as abstract numbers, but as a design material possessing its own texture, weight, and emotional resonance. Yet, translating these academic theories into real-world applications required a breakthrough.
Entering the Data Visualization Society (DVS) mentorship program, Aourpally arrived armed with a singular, pressing question: How do you make someone viscerally feel the cost of something entirely invisible?
The Mentorship Under Divya Meghnani
Through the DVS program, Aourpally was paired with Divya Meghnani, Head of Product at Databricks. Meghnani proved instrumental in helping bridge the chasm between her professional data work and her broader creative ambitions. Rather than focusing strictly on technical execution, Meghnani pushed Aourpally to move beyond the superficial "what" of the data and interrogate the deeper "why" of the human experience. This mentorship served as the catalyst that transformed a theoretical concept into a tangible interactive project.
Developing Wired to Burn
Stepping away from traditional, static charts, Aourpally sought inspiration from emergent systems. Drawing heavily from Daniel Shiffman’s seminal text The Nature of Code and the human-centric design principles pioneered by Giorgia Lupi (known widely as "Data Humanism"), she turned to cellular automata to model environmental degradation.
The result of this exploration is Wired to Burn, an interactive, web-based wildfire simulator hosted on Vercel (https://wired-to-burn.vercel.app/). In this digital environment, the user ceases to be a passive observer. Instead, the cursor acts as the spark.
Upon launching the simulation, the user is greeted by a near-black canvas populated by over 9,000 individual cells representing six distinct terrain types, each rendered as a vibrant neon symbol against a dark backdrop:
- Emerald green targets representing dense forests.
- Violet starbursts signifying shrublands.
- Acid yellow dashes denoting agricultural zones.
- Lime green dots mapping out grasslands.
- Cyan sine waves tracing wetlands.
- Slate blue squares indicating developed land.
At the center of this quiet, unblemished landscape hovers an amber ember cursor. The user selects their chosen terrain—ranging from moisture-rich timberlands to parched grasslands—and establishes the initial conditions for ignition. But once the user clicks to start the fire, the underlying math takes over entirely.
Powered by p5.js, the simulation operates as a live cellular grid where the state of every individual cell is dynamically determined by its immediate neighbors and the pre-set environmental variables. The fire behaves organically, functioning as a living system that calculates real-time risk based on fuel density and localized dryness levels—the exact variables amplified by the escalating energy demands of our modern, AI-driven society.
Supporting Data: The Digital Footprint of Modern Infrastructure
To understand the urgency behind Aourpally’s work, one must examine the broader macro-data governing modern energy consumption and climate risk.
- The AI Energy Surge: According to recent international energy assessments, data centers dedicated to cloud computing and machine learning are projected to double their power consumption within the decade. Many individual campuses now draw electricity loads equivalent to mid-sized cities.
- Grid Vulnerability Metrics: Utility companies across the Western United States report that thousands of miles of transmission infrastructure now traverse High Fire-Threat Districts (HFTDs). As summer temperatures rise and multi-year droughts persist, the baseline fuel moisture content of regional brush and timber has plummeted to historic lows.
- Cellular Automata Accuracy: Scientific modeling of wildfires via cellular automata—similar to the algorithmic foundation used in Wired to Burn—has long been utilized by forestry agencies to predict fire spread rates based on wind speed, slope, and vegetation density. By democratizing these complex formulas into a browser-based interactive tool, Aourpally makes institutional-grade predictive data universally accessible.
- The Human-Centric Feedback Loop: Following Giorgia Lupi’s Data Humanism framework, the simulation purposefully rejects cold, clinical black pixels for its burn zones. As the fire consumes the digital landscape, it leaves behind a wake of "ash" manifested as contextual narrative text. This text explicitly details the hidden infrastructure costs and environmental externalities tied to everyday digital behaviors, grounding abstract metrics in relatable human storytelling.
Official Responses and Public Exhibition: The TIAT Showcase
The true test of Wired to Burn arrived when Aourpally debuted the project at the TIAT exhibition in San Francisco. It was within this physical gallery space that the elusive empathy gap finally began to close.
Observers and exhibition attendees approached the screen drawn in by the striking visual aesthetics of the generative fire. However, as the initial visual awe gave way to reading the narrative text embedded within the digital ash, a noticeable psychological shift occurred among the audience. Visitors quickly realized they were not merely playing an interactive video game or tinkering with a generic software toy; they were actively engaging with a stark mirror of contemporary climate reality.
One of the most profound indicators of the installation’s success was observed when visitors repeatedly returned to re-read the narration left behind in the scorched zones. This organic behavior validated a core tenet of modern information design: when data is imbued with a human pulse, audiences stop scrolling mindlessly and begin deep, critical reflection.
Industry peers and design critics praised the project for weaponizing beauty and interactivity in service of environmental accountability. By translating dry spreadsheets and utility reports into a visceral, responsive experience, Wired to Burn successfully bypassed the cognitive fatigue that typically plagues traditional climate reporting.
Implications: The Future of Data Design and "The Final Draft"
As Pranavi Aourpally transitions from an emerging academic voice to an established exhibitor and thought leader in the data visualization community, her work offers a profound blueprint for the future of the discipline.
With her sights now set on the upcoming Outlier Conference—which centers around the evocative theme of “The Final Draft”—Aourpally is deeply exploring the boundaries of curiosity, technical tools, and design constraints. In the realm of data storytelling, “The Final Draft” is a misnomer; it serves as an acknowledgment that data visualization is never truly finished. It is an iterative, living process.
In the context of climate change and energy infrastructure, this ethos is especially poignant. The terrain inevitably regenerates, the wildfire cycle inevitably repeats, and the underlying data continually demands to be felt rather than merely filed away.
The ultimate takeaway from Wired to Burn transcends the boundaries of p5.js code or cellular automata simulations. It serves as a vital reminder for all data designers, technologists, and communicators: our professional responsibility extends far beyond simply showing the numbers. In the face of monumental, complex systems like global climate change and energy grids, creators must remain humble and dedicated to ensuring that when we talk about the world, we make the people inhabiting it feel the exact weight of what is at stake.
About the Author
Pranavi Aourpally is a San Francisco–based creative technologist and data designer whose work explores the intricate intersections of data storytelling, environmental systems, and product design. Alongside her professional work in the data industry, she continues to build open-source tools and interactive exhibits that bridge the gap between complex technical information and human empathy.
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