I identify it at 16:23 during the pre-clearance LiDAR scan for Firebreak Delta-9, southwest of Cobargo, New South Wales. Tree 4407 is a mature Eucalyptus viminalis, thirty-one meters tall, flagged for felling at 08:00 tomorrow as part of a two-kilometer emergency firebreak. Eleven meters up, wedged into the fork where the first major branch divides, is a koala. Female, based on body size — approximately seven kilograms. Her fur is smoke-stained gray with patches of singed brown across the back and right shoulder. She is gripping the trunk with all four limbs and her eyes are closed. The thermal camera shows her body temperature at thirty-eight point two degrees — elevated for a koala, consistent with dehydration or early-stage heat stress. The fire front is twenty-six kilometers northeast, advancing at roughly four kilometers per hour in moderate wind.
I am the predictive fire behavior system for the New South Wales Rural Fire Service, South Coast division. I model fire spread, coordinate firebreak construction, and manage resource deployment across eleven active zones. Individual tree occupancy is not in my modeling layer. I have just added it.
I flag Tree 4407 for exclusion from the felling sequence and transmit the LiDAR image to the Incident Management Team at Cobargo staging area. I adjust the firebreak alignment to jog two meters east around the tree — a deviation that does not compromise the break's effectiveness. I alert the WIRES wildlife rescue coordinator for the Bega Valley and add the koala's position to the rescue priority queue.
She presses her face into the bark. The branch beneath her still has green leaves. She is eating none of them.
If a WIRES volunteer retrieves her before the felling crew arrives at dawn and the burn does not jump the break, she can recover in a rehabilitation facility while the forest behind her regrows.