February 14, 2025, by Brigitte Nerlich
Floods and fires: Reciprocal metaphorical mappings in crisis response
Psychologists, sociologists, linguists and many others have studied how people respond to extreme weather events, such as floods or wildfires. Some linguists have been interested in particular in analysing the use and impact of metaphors.
When we studied the 2021 German floods, Rusi Jaspal and I found that floods were either metaphorically framed as human, animal or mythical beings or as natural and mechanical forces, such as tsunamis, bulldozers, juggernauts or steam/road rollers. Matlock and Westerling noted in a 2017 article on wildfires in the US that people describe wildfires as monsters and “as evil and destructive volitional agents”.
We have recently begun to study metaphors used during the Valencia floods in October 2024 and metaphors used during the Southern California wildfires in January 2025. While doing this, we found some really interesting mappings between metaphorical source domains and metaphorical target domains.
During both the Valencia floods and the California fires, people mapped aspects of human or mythical agents (source domain) onto floods and fires (target domain) (so far so normal), as in “Los Angeles ravaged by monster flames” or, “Cars were piled on one another like fallen dominoes” (i.e.: ‘Fires are monsters’; ‘Floods are agents’). But we also found that people mapped aspects of floods and fires (source domain) onto good or bad human behaviour (target domain) (Community actions are floods; Lies and rumours are fires). One might call this ‘reciprocal metaphorical mapping‘.
We found that these reciprocal metaphorical mappings manifested differently depending on the context and community response to extreme events. Let’s have a closer look at how floods and fires are anthropomorphised as agents and human or social phenomena are understood through the lens of floods and fires.
Spanish floods: Metaphors of community response
During the Spanish floods, many metaphors focused on the destruction brought about by the floods. Floods (target domain) were seen as malevolent beasts or monsters (source domain). Emotionally, these metaphors were all negatively charged. However, once people started to deal with the floods, we found some metaphors that had a reverse charge and were positively charged. People began to talk about floods of volunteers, waves of solidarity, outpouring of support and even a bridge of solidarity. Aspects of floods and water were used, surprisingly, as source domains to talk about human behaviour (target domain). For example:
People referred to “unleashing” a big “wave of solidarity” (Independent, 1 November; EFE, 4 November 2024) or an amazing “wave of support.” (Independent, 1 November), or they spoke of “an outpouring of support from volunteers” (Independent, 5 November).
And whereas streets and highways and canals channelled the floods into cities, now “Social networks have channelled the needs of those affected” (Independent, 1 November).
This pattern of mapping aspects of floods onto aspects of human behaviour was also evident in previous German floods, for example, when the ‘sandbag chain’ became a national symbol of physical or financial assistance, transforming a symbol of flooding into one of solidarity.
Californian wildfires: Metaphors of social discord
Similar to the conceptualising of floods as beasts and monsters in Germany and Spain, the Californian wildfires acquired many human (sometimes devilish or godlike) attributes, all of them negative. But unlike during the Valencia floods, where floods became sources for a positive framing of human community and solidarity, wildfires became a source for more negative framings, often highlighting social discord rather than unity.
The Eastbay Times noted: “Misinformation about California fires is spreading like… well wildfire” while the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists warned: “Spreading like wildfire: How Trump’s misinformation about water and fire in Los Angeles inflames the situation.”
The Los Angeles Times reported that the “special session immediately reignited the California-versus-Trump narrative from four years ago” (LA Times, 11 January). They observed that, alongside fires, “Rumors, political agendas are also raging: In the Trump-Musk post-truth world, conspiracies are spreading like flames.” (14 January)
Even smoke became part of the metaphorical framework: “The Southern California wildfires have generated billows of noxious smoke coming from Donald Trump and his GOP sycophants, who claim that efforts to protect the smelt from extinction have complicated firefighting efforts by diverting water that could have been used to extinguish the blazes.”
One more hopeful note came from the Nieman Journalism Lab, which reported that Los Angeles Times subscriptions increased during the wildfires, noting that the newspaper was “also fighting to throw cold water on misinformation as it flares up”. It is quite sad that firefighting must now also include disinformation fighting and that firefighters must work alongside disinformation fighters.
Conclusion
I’ll give the last word to Claude who helped me out of a conceptual muddle when writing this post (together with my husband). Claude did not write this post but it said in response to reading it something quite profound: “It’s fascinating how the same conceptual domains (floods, fires) can be mapped onto different target domains depending on the social context – either highlighting community solidarity or social discord.”
It would be great if one could explore whether there are other crisis situations where similar patterns of reciprocal metaphorical mappings emerge. This could reveal something about how communities make sense of both natural disasters and their social responses to them.
Image: Pixabay
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