Something so rare and wonderful happened this week that it must be shared:

The Stephens Wildland Fire Science Lab at UC Berkeley recently hosted a departmental happy hour. To celebrate the occasion, Stephens Lab PhD candidate Anu Kramer illustrated a typical Sierra Nevada post-fire succession in the form of three cakes:

The first cake, shown above, represents a dense Sierra mixed-conifer forest. Large sugar cones with green rice crispies are large remnant pines. The smaller cones with green shredded coconut represent invading shade-tolerant fir trees. Slivered almonds represent a heavy buildup of surface fuels.

To represent immediate post-high-severity fire effects, Anu employed a highly accurate rendering of stand conditions using a dense, flourless chocolate cake.

A passionfruit cake with chocolate-coconut frosting was used to demonstrate one year post-wildfire regeneration. Note the vibrant understory regeneration with wildflowers.