After learning in early 2017 that they had received research funding as members of a graduate student team, Sasha Kramer and Kelsey Bisson spent months planning the research cruise that would take place that December. But their plans changed when the Thomas Fire, which would become the largest California wildfire in history at that time, spread from Ventura to Santa Barbara County. The object of this part of their study was to describe the phytoplankton community, microscopic organisms that are foundational to the marine food web. Composed of several broad groups, including bacteria and single-celled algae, phytoplankton live in the sunlit upper regions of the ocean, not only feeding a diversity of animals in the Channel, from tiny zooplankton to whales, but also performing important roles in the ocean’s carbon and nutrient cycles. An imbalance in the phytoplankton community could lead to a range of phenomena, from toxic blooms to oxygen-free dead zones, affecting all who live in and use the Channel.