California's third-largest wildfire saw deer return home to their families while the trees were still'still smoldering.

What happens to animals when a wildfire ravages a landscape? Although many animals have learned to survive wildfires in the past, which were less frequent, more frequent, and maintained balance across West ecosystems -- scientists aren't sure how animals will cope with the unprecedented number of megafires today. Wildfires are becoming more destructive and severe due to climate change and over 100 years of fire suppression. Researchers from the University of Washington and the University of California at Berkeley were able track a group of black-tailed elk during and after California’s third-largest wildfire.

The results have been published in Ecology and Evolution on Oct. 28th. "We don’t know much about what animals do during the flames or in the days following wildfires," stated co-lead author Kaitlyn Graynor. She is a postdoctoral researcher at UC Santa Barbara's National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis. "It was a fortunate accident that we were able see what these animals did during and after the wildfire, which was still a barren landscape. They were shocked at what they discovered. All 18 deer were able to survive the experiment. Even though some areas were completely burnt and there was no vegetation left to eat, the deer that fled the flames returned to their homes. The fire had already been out for hours, and most deer returned to their homes within minutes. However, trees were still burning. It is not common to have access to this information from GPS collars and wildlife cameras, especially when trying to study how animals react to extreme and unpredictable events like megafires. "There are few studies that focus on the immediate, short-term responses of wildfire-prone animals. The impact of a wildfire on the landscape is dramatic and underrated, according to Samantha Kreling who is a doctoral student at UW School of Environmental and Forest Sciences. The study was conducted northwest of Sacramento at University of California's Hopland Research and Extension Center. Here, researchers were studying black-tailed deer movements. The team had already placed 18 tracking collars on deer, and several dozen motion-activated wildlife cameras throughout the area before the Mendocino Complex Fire. The smoke was visible near Hopland on July 27, 2018. They were instructed to evacuate the area immediately as large flames had swept through. The Mendocino Complex Fire, which was at the time California's largest wildfire, destroyed just over half the land of the research center. Kreling needed data from the site to complete her senior year undergraduate thesis at UC Berkeley.

Kreling and her co-authors were able to examine how deer use space and how that affected their bodies and survival. Kreling stated, "Seeing the dramatic changes in the landscape made me wonder what it was like for animals on land to deal with the repercussions from having an event such as this sweep through. It was extremely helpful to compare what happened before and what happened afterwards by having the infrastructure in place.