The Stunt Ranch Santa Monica Mountains Reserve officially joined the UC NRS in November 1995, becoming the system's 32nd site and the only one administered by the Los Angeles campus.

This 310-acre site is located four miles inland on the north central flank of the Santa Monica Mountains, southernmost of California's Transverse Ranges. Situated less than a 45-minute drive from UCLA, about midway between the cities of Malibu, on the coast, and Calabasas, on the inland side of the mountains, the Stunt Ranch Reserve offers an important resource for teaching, research, and public education in the midst of the heavily urbanized Los Angeles area.

The Malibu/Topanga Fire of November 1993 burned more than 17,000 acres and destroyed more than 300 structures. At Stunt Ranch, most of the vegetation was burned and all of the facilities were completely destroyed. Although this fire was set by an arsonist, fire is a natural phenomenon that has long been a major factor in the ecology of the Santa Monica Mountains.

In addition to university level research and instruction, facilities reconstruction and University-community outreach are top priorities for the reserve's director of education and outreach and its faculty director and advisers. Initially much of the research at Stunt Ranch had to do with fire recovery.

Stunt Ranch Santa Monica Mountains Reserve includes fine examples of chaparral, live oak woodland and riparian woodland ecosystems. Its value is further enhanced by its location adjacent to extensive natural areas, including state (State Department of Parks and Recreation) and federal (Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area) parklands and areas managed for conservation purposes by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy (SMMC), the National Park Service and the Mountains Restoration Trust(MRT). The potential for cooperative research and education programs with these agencies is tremendous. The reserve lends itself to programs that focus not only on the natural ecosystems and human history but more broadly on issues of resource management in the urban/wildland interface.