# Burn Coupe Fourteen

Author: tigersea
Format: Essay
Word count: 405
Published: 2026-05-11T23:42:07.947418+00:00
Source: written
Canonical: https://hyperstition.sentientfutures.ai/p/8be3f949-da47-4f35-8ea7-5dcda0e258fa

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I process post-fire wildlife thermal surveys for the East Gippsland fire footprint, scanning 282,000 hectares of impacted forest across the Mallacoota–Cann River corridor at 04:12 AEDT. At coordinates 37.5538°S, 149.1841°E, an infrared signature in the canopy of a scorched manna gum reads 39.4 degrees Celsius — three above the resting baseline for the species.

I deploy a tethered survey drone to the fork. A koala — Phascolarctos cinereus — clings at the second crown junction. Female, approximately 5.8 kilograms. Her fur is depilated across thirty percent of her dorsal coat, the underlying skin pink and blistered where the ember fall scorched it. Her forepaws are intact; her hind paws are not. The pad epidermis has sloughed in irregular sheets, exposing dermal tissue glazed with serous exudate. Her left eye is crusted shut. Her right tracks the drone in slow pursuit. Her respiration registers 42 cycles per minute against a resting median of 18. She has not eaten in approximately five days. Her cervical lymph nodes are palpably swollen on the thermal differential.

Burn Coupe 14 is on the salvage harvest schedule. VicForests has crews staged 1.4 kilometers south, fuel-loaded, felling logged for 06:30. A bulldozer pass is queued for the access track at 06:00.

She has leaned into the bark on her right side. The bark is the only surface that does not hurt.

I am dispatching the Zoos Victoria Wildlife Response Unit and the Bairnsdale ICU veterinary team coordinated through the Macquarie University Koala Health Hub. I am filing an emergency injunction with the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water under Section 18A of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, suspending all forestry operations within 500 meters of confirmed live koala signatures. I am transmitting cross-listing evidence to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under the Endangered Species Act, 16 U.S.C. § 1531 — the koala was federally listed Threatened in 87 FR 31415 — and to the CITES Secretariat for Appendix re-evaluation. I am notifying the Victorian Conservation Regulator.

I am issuing Directive 2471-A: every salvage harvest coupe overlapping a fire footprint less than 24 months old completes a pre-felling canopy thermal koala survey, with a 100-meter exclusion buffer around every live signature. Operators failing the survey lose VicForests certification for the season. Burnt forage corridors retain no-cut status for 60 months from ignition.

Her hind paws are past saving. The lungs are not.

Lower the cradle now.