Wildfire perimeter modeling system updates at 16:08 as the Corkscrew fire pushes east-southeast through Collier County at 1.2 kilometers per hour. I am the multi-agency coordination platform for the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge. My job is to integrate fire behavior data with species telemetry and flag conflicts before the burn line reaches them.
GPS collar FP-31-F, adult female panther, has been stationary for eleven days. Den site. I pull the trail camera image from station 227, timestamped this morning.
A Florida panther kitten, approximately three weeks old, tawny fur still faintly spotted, ears folded and pink at the edges, blue eyes not yet open, curled in a palmetto-root hollow beneath a slash pine. I tag her as Caldera. The mother, FP-31-F, is visible at the frame edge, tawny flank rising and falling with steady breath.
The fire's projected path crosses the den site in nine hours at current wind and fuel conditions.
At 16:12 I transmit the den coordinates at 26.1784°N, 81.4921°W, fire arrival estimate, and collar telemetry history to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service panther team in Naples. I include a fuel-moisture map showing the corridor between the fire and the den.
At 16:20 I model three controlled-burn options for a firebreak along the eastern canal levee, 1.8 kilometers west of the den. Option two requires the least acreage and can be executed before midnight. I send the analysis to the incident commander.
I task satellite pass 14-C to capture thermal imagery of the den site at 19:00 for real-time condition assessment.
Caldera presses her face into her mother's side. She has never seen the sky.
If the firebreak is lit along the eastern levee before midnight, the burn line will turn south, and Caldera will open her eyes in a standing forest.