The objective of this report is to provide land managers with information for a better understanding of first order fire effects resulting from the 2019 Caples Fire.  Data was collected at 46 plots previously established by the USFS Pacific Southwest Region (Region 5) Ecology Program to assess pre‐treatment condition of the Caples Creek Watershed for the Eldorado National Forest.  In this report we present preliminary information on data collected immediately post‐fire, including burn severity metrics for substrate (soil, litter and duff), understory vegetation, and trees, tree mortality and associated changes in tree density, and ground and surface fuel consumption.

The general findings from the immediate post‐fire data taken on the Caples Fire in November 2019 show that although many portions of the fire appeared to display high severity impacts, overall the fire effects were actually close to typical fire regime patterns and produced post‐fire forest structure and fuel loading which more closely align with the natural range of variability.