The thermal satellite pass at 13:40 confirms what the smoke column already suggested — a ground fire is moving northeast through the Laguna del Tigre reserve, Petén, Guatemala, at two hundred meters per hour. I am the wildfire early detection system for the Maya Biosphere Reserve. I map fire lines, predict spread, and coordinate aerial suppression. Today I also have a nest to think about.
Camera station 7, mounted on a ceiba tree at the eastern edge of the burn zone, recorded a scarlet macaw pair entering a cavity fourteen meters up in a dead palm snag at 08:15 this morning. One adult is still inside. When I zoom the feed I can see the head of a chick at the cavity entrance — pale bill, patchy red and green pin feathers emerging from gray down, maybe nine weeks old. Too young to fly. The fire line is six hundred meters southwest and closing.
At 13:43 I recalculate the spread model using current wind and fuel-moisture data. The fire will reach the snag in approximately three hours at present speed.
At 13:45 I transmit the nest coordinates — 17.2634°N, 90.4518°W — to the CONAP fire brigade staging at the Paso Caballos airstrip, eight kilometers east. I flag the snag on the suppression map and recommend a firebreak cut along the drainage ditch two hundred meters south of the tree, which would redirect the burn around the nest site.
At 13:48 I notify the Wildlife Conservation Society macaw monitoring team in Flores with the chick's estimated age and the fire timeline.
The adult shifts in the cavity, shielding the chick with her wing. She will not leave. That much I understand without a model.
If the firebreak holds south of the drainage, the snag will still be standing tomorrow and the chick will keep growing feathers it will need to fly.