While a wildlife officer supervises, four people in waders use orange buckets to help in the rescue of at-risk fish species

With emergency support from USC Sea Grant, community agencies and volunteers mobilized during the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires to save two at-risk fish species whose habitats were in the wildfire zone. (Photo: Phyllis Grifman/USC Sea Grant)

Long Live the Fire Fish: USC Sea Grant helps save endangered local fish during wildfires

June 20, 2025

Original story by Charlotte Stevenson

As historic wildfires burned entire sections of the Los Angeles area in January 2025, a local biologist couldn’t stop thinking about fish.

Rosi Dagit, who had to evacuate from her own home due to the Palisades fire, works for the Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains. She knew that, as firefighters kept up their heroic efforts to save the Palisades community, they might unintentionally wipe out populations of endangered gobies and trout living in nearby Topanga Lagoon.

The additional water from firefighting, combined with the year’s first significant rainfall, began washing away the hillside around the lagoon while the fires were still raging. The extra mud and vegetation careened toward the lagoon, where it was likely to suffocate the vulnerable fish or wash them out to sea.

But the story has a happy ending. With financial and staff support from USC Sea Grant, the public outreach arm of the Wrigley Institute for Environment and Sustainability, Dagit and other community agencies were able to mobilize quickly to save the fish.

Rosi Dagit, wearing a red vest and white cap, and Brenton Spies, wearing a pale green shirt and blue cap, stand near an estuary at the ocean — Rosie Dagit, of the Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains (left), and Brenton Spies, of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (right), helped lead efforts to save endangered gobies and trout from the Palisades wildfire. (Photo: Rachel Darling/USC Sea Grant)

Led by Dagit and California Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists, the heroic volunteer rescue efforts took place in late January 2025 and saved 271 Steelhead trout and 760 tidewater gobies. It all happened amidst the chaos on Topanga Canyon Boulevard, where burned power poles were falling and people were evacuating or fighting a blaze that ultimately consumed 23,000 acres.

Dagit and the others had to coordinate with California Highway Patrol, Cal Fire, local police, and many others to make this desperate fish rescue happen. But for Rosi, “It was the opportunity to do something positive and hopeful in the face of so much destruction.”

In the News

Read the full story on the USC Sea Grant website >>

Los Angeles Times: Nearly 300 trout rescued from Palisades Fire burn scar >>

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