Research overview: puma responses to wildfire in California landscapes

Pumas in fire-prone California navigate landscapes repeatedly shaped by wildfire, and tracking studies examine how they respond to burns. This overview surveys research on how pumas move during and after fires, whether they avoid or use recently burned areas, how fire interacts with the urban fragmentation that already constrains some populations, and how prey redistribute after fire. It reviews the compounding stress of fire on small, isolated puma populations near cities. The synthesis frames fire as one of several interacting pressures on California pumas, explaining how a single large fire can temporarily shrink usable habitat for cats already squeezed by freeways and development, and how movement data reveal their behavioral flexibility in a burning landscape.