OC burning: Images from the heart of the fire

It's a grim thought, but if you had been inside the wildfires which swept over southern California a few weeks ago (actually inside them) and survived, then this is what you would have seen.

The image was captured by a camera trap, that is to say, a camera fitted with a motion sensor that takes a picture whenever something in its range moves. Amazingly, this camera somehow made it through the fires.

Camera traps are normally used by conservationists; for instance, a few weeks ago the Zoological Society of London in the UK issued a series of candid pictures taken in patch of Sumatra forest (they're great, check them out).

This particular trap is in Orange County on the decommissioned El Toro marine corps air base, between Los Angeles and San Diego. A couple of researchers from the US Geological Survey use it and others like it to study coyote behaviour in the area.

On 21 and 22 October it caught this incredible sequence (click on the individual images to enlarge them):

At 0945, the wind picks up, and moving leaves and branches trigger the camera which takes a series of pictures, including this one at 1044.










At 0450 on 22 October a coyote runs by. It might have been fleeing the fires.










The next shot, taken at 0900 speaks for itself










Just one minute later, at 0901, the fire has passed. A few shrubs continue to burn.










The camera keeps taking a picture a minute for 10 minutes until this one, at 0910. It shows just how thick the smoke was in the 0901 picture.










The camera doesn't fire again until the following day at 1112, when a coyote walks by – difficult to say if it's the same one – in the direction that the coyote on 22 October came from.

Catherine Brahic, online environment reporter