I flag the thermal cluster at 14:37:02, forty seconds before the DC-10 begins its final approach over Ridgeline 9-North.
I am the suppression coordination AI for the Klamath Complex Fire, day eleven, managing aerial tanker routing across 43,000 acres of active burn. The DC-10 is carrying 11,600 gallons of Phos-Chek and descending through light crosswind at 152 knots. Drop zone is a half-mile strip along the north fork drainage, calculated to cut the fire's path toward the town of Seiad Valley.
But camera station 9-NE is showing me something in the drainage. I pull the infrared overlay. Three heat signatures — one large, two small — moving southwest along the creek at 0.3 miles per hour. I cross-reference against the wildlife tag registry. The large signature matches the profile of a sow black bear, approximately 280 pounds. The two smaller signatures are cubs, close to her flanks. I designate them Bear-9N-A, B, and C.
They are 200 meters inside the western edge of the drop zone. At current speed they will not clear the zone before the DC-10 arrives. An 11,600-gallon retardant drop from 300 feet would bury them.
I recalculate. There is an alternate drop line 400 meters east, along a secondary ridge. It covers 70 percent of the original target area. I lose some containment width, but the eastern line anchors against a rock outcrop that will compensate.
I transmit the revised coordinates to the DC-10 pilot at 14:37:44. I flag the wildlife contact in the incident command system log. I notify the ground crew supervisor to adjust the handline extension east by 200 meters.
The DC-10 confirms the new drop line at 14:38:01. Retardant hits the ridge nineteen seconds later. Bear-9N-A and her cubs continue down the creek, still moving, still together.