Note: this article was originally posted in 2014 but is just as applicable to the Southeast wildfires occurring now.
Many animals and other organisms have evolved to cope with—and even thrive in the wake of—the flames.
“Wildlife have a long-standing relationship with fire,” says ecosystem ecologist Mazeika Sullivan of Ohio State University, Columbus. “Fire is a natural part of these [wilderness] landscapes.”
When the flames begin, animals don’t just sit there and wait to be overcome. Birds will fly away. Mammals will run. Amphibians and other small creatures will burrow into the ground, hide out in logs, or take cover under rocks. And other animals, including large ones like elk, will take refuge in streams and lakes.
Gabriel d’Eustachio, a bush firefighter in Australia, says he doesn’t usually see many animals in fires, although a flaming bunny once surprised him. But he has spotted plenty of invertebrates preceding the flames. “You get overrun by this wave of creepy-crawlies walking ahead of the fire,” he says.
Scientists don’t have any good estimates on the number of animals that die in wildfires each year. But there are no documented cases of fires—even the really severe ones—wiping out entire populations or species.
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