University of Redlands
The El Dorado Fire began on September 5, 2020, in Yucaipa, California. A fire broke out after a gender reveal party mishap that set the nearby brush ablaze. The fire spread eastwards to the Bearpaw Preserve in the San Bernardino National Forest. The fire continued to burn for nearly two months and reached full containment in mid-November 2020. Over twenty-two thousand acres of land was burned leading to the displacement of wildlife.
During Dr. Wendy McIntyre's Ecology for Environmental Scientists course, students would hike in the Bearpaw Preserve to perform habitat mensuration and install wildlife cameras. Footage and habitat data were collected to document the secondary ecological succession after the El Dorado Fire. At each camera location, students recorded canopy height, soil moisture, basal area, canopy coverage, tree diameter at breast height (DBH), slope, and aspect. This succession is the recolonization of plants and animals after an ecological disturbance.
Ecological Succession in the Bearpaw Preserve StoryMap
