The fire followers are glorious. What can I say except that? I’ve not seen Phacelia grandiflora since I pressed it in my college botany class. I was fortunate to be collecting the Spring after a Malibu fire, and here it is again, in the San Gabriel Mountains. Phacelia grandiflora and the other fire followers probably haven’t bloomed here for over 50 years as the last recorded fire was in 1959 in western Altadena.
Before the spring wildflowers, our foothill communities may be suffering from mudflows this winter. The USGS just released its assessment based on two scenarios, a gentle, sustained 12-hour rain and a hard 3-hr rain storm. In both of the scenarios, the USGS predicts that Pacoima Canyon, Big Tujunga Canyon, the Arroyo Seco, the West Fork of the San Gabriel River and Devils Canyon would have an 80% risk of mudflows. This risk includes the basins that are tributaries to each of these canyons, too. Our geomorphology works against us here. To quote the USGS report: “The high probabilities from basins burned by the Station fire reflects the combined effects of the steep slopes throughout the area and extensive areas burned at high and moderate severities.” To my surprise, a gentle soaking rain could actually generate more of a hazard than the short duration hard rain, and it looks like the communities of La Crescenta and La Canada Flintridge will suffer the most, potentially. The USGS report suggests that Altadena will be spared mudflow hazards because the major drainages that burned, El Prieto and Millard, drain into the Devil’s Gate Reservoir. Remember, these are the results of modeling and real life experiences will be different. The 28-page report is available on the USGS website. You can also listen to an interview by KPCC’s Larry Mantle with Lucy Jones.
This is the bad news. The good news is that we have this information in advance of the winter rains so people can plan. For an unfortunate few, their homes are reported to be at so much risk they’ve been advised to install plywood on the windows and get out when it rains, according to the article in the Los Angeles Times. The County Flood Control District and Department of Public Works staff are working overtime to reduce the hazards by cleaning out all of the 28 debris basins, including expanding some of them. They have been holding frequent meetings for emergency response personnel in the foothills to plan and coordinate. And they have been meeting with communities and individuals to assess risks and draw up plans for protection. You can learn more at the County’s website.
I’ve seen the pictures and videos, and went on a short hike into the forest myself. It’s hard not to feel devastated, hard not to cry for the burned over mountains and lost trails. It’s hard not to feel like it is gone “forever.” It’s hard not to worry about the deer and put out food for the birds. I’ve heard people say it will be “generations” before the forest is like it was. I’ve also heard people say we need to reseed and replant for a “new, better forest.”
First of all, the forest is not dead. Chaparral plants have a few tricks they have evolved to deal with fire – they either sprout from seeds that have been dormant in the soil waiting for a fire to give them the right conditions, like poppies and sages, or they store enough energy to resprout from underground roots and stems, like toyon, sumac, and wild cucumber. It might surprise some people, used to reading the expiration dates on seed packages, to know that the seeds of chaparral plants actually survive a very long time in the soil. Some, like whispering bells, fire poppies, and many lupines, are even called “fire followers” because they only show up after a fire. Their seeds might have waited decades for this one chance to bloom.
Reseeding in chaparral is a waste of time and money.
After the 1993 fires, the Forest Service refused to seed the lands burned by the Green Meadow fire but LA County Forestry Division insisted on seeding within the Old Topanga fire boundaries. As the two areas were very similar in all ways, it was simple to count the plants that were present the following spring to see if the seeding (with almost all non-native plants) had any effect on recovery. In the end, the only difference detected between the two areas was the higher prevalence of non-native weeds within the Old Topanga burn (Jon Keeley, 1996). Seeding was indeed a waste of time and money.
Along with the misguided calls to seed the hillsides and the perennial calls to ramp up burns in the backcountry to create “slow burning” chaparral (which is also a misconception), some have been suggesting that we should use this as an opportunity to replant a new and better Angeles National Forest.
The Los Angeles Times has been furthering some of these misconceptions through its reporting on the Station Fire. This last week the Los Angeles Times published a letter from TreePeople founder Andy Lipkis suggesting that he wanted us all to plant trees in the forest. It turns out that our own LA Times mangled his letter by cutting out a crucial paragraph in which Andy said:
“Our hope is that in large portions of the forest a natural and healthier chaparral and pine forest can re-sprout without human help. Where that is not possible, the Forest Service will prescribe the restoration strategies and timeline consistent with fire ecology.”
We will need to pay attention to the fire breaks that were cut for many miles through the forests. Scraped of the plants that used to catch the rainfall and hold the soil in place, these cuts will be additional sources of slope failure, mud slides, and easy places for invasive plants to take hold.
Those who want to do something to help the wildlands recover would do best to join in local habitat restoration efforts in a park or public land near you. Look for volunteer opportunities with organizations that have experience in habitat restoration. Invasive plant control projects are especially helpful because removing invasive exotics from these areas protects the landscape from future ignitions. And if you must plant a tree, be sure the seeds used for the effort were sourced from the watershed in which you are planting. When it comes to restoration, plants need not just be native, but need to be native to and sourced from the watershed for highest survivability.
Good thing chaparral has the wisdom to repair itself. When it comes to restoring chaparral, as the Buddhists say, “Don’t just do something, sit there.”
The San Gabriels are rich in history. One of my favorite stories is about the Brown brothers, Jason and Owen, two of the sons of John Brown the liberator. Owen was the last surviving participant in the raid on Harpers Ferry and with his brother Jason he had homesteaded a place at what is now the top of Rising Hill Road. Owen lived only about five years here before he died suddenly January 8, 1889. His funeral in Pasadena was attended by 2,000 people, and his remains were interred on what is now called “Little Round Top.” You can read more about Owen and Jason Brown in the Altadena Historical Society’s book, Altadena: Between Wilderness and City, by Michele Zack.
Last weekend I spent a lot of time looking at Little Round Top. Because of its proximity to two homes above the Meadows, it was hit repeatedly with fire retardant, and its red slopes stood out. I could only see the hill from below, and I’ve been anxiously wondering about its fate ever since. Now Paul Ayers has sent out before and after photos, and with his permission I am posting the series. The first photo was taken during Owen Brown’s graveside service. The second, taken in 2003, is the contemporary before photo. Finally, Paul sent a photo taken on September 2nd. All three photos were taken from the same vantage point, looking to the west.
People are asking what they can do – and blaming those who they think didn’t do enough – before the fire is even put out. I heard that in the past people accepted that fires would happen every year and didn’t worry too much but viewed the fires more as entertainment. That was probably in the days when there were not so many people living so close to the forest, and those who did were a hardier sort. Now, so many new developments have brought people who don’t understand or don’t want to think about what it means to live right next door to native chaparral. They are searching for someone to blame, and recently they have settled on the Forest Service. It must be the fault of the managers, right?
Not so fast, says Richard Halsey, director of the California Chaparral Institute: “The Station Fire is not the fault of federal land managers, firefighters, or environmental laws. Huge wildfires will occur in Southern California regardless of how the government ‘manages’ its lands. They are an inevitable part of life here.” You can read more about Rick Halsey and his California Chaparral Institute, but he is someone who I trust. As a teacher, fire fighter, author, and passionate advocate for California chaparral, he focuses on current research and his own experiences.
My own interest in chaparral started when I took a plant taxonomy course at Occidental College and had the good fortune of having Dr. Jon Keeley as my professor. Jon spends his time studying the interactions between wildfire and our California wildlands. I learned then about the different strategies chaparral use to recover from fire (and I’m using chaparral broadly to include all plant communities in our Mediterranean climate forests). Over the last 30 years of living in California, I have witnessed fire recovery first hand. In the early 80’s we had beehives in one of the canyons off Kanan Dume Road. After the big Malibu fire, I could track the recovery of the chaparral by the taste and color of the honey. Initially, in the spring we got the most wonderful, yellow-colored honey from native sunflowers, but no sage honey. Over about five years the amount of sunflower and sage shifted, until the early spring honey was back to all sage. I saw the incredible diversity of “fire-followers,” those flowers that only grow after a fire. I was amazed to see Yucca whipplei plants rolling down the hill, having been severed from their roots by the fire, sending up flower stalks and blooming successfully. 
And all of the sumacs send up new stalks using energy stored in their root system (this is why it is futile to cut down a sumac bush as it will just resprout from the base and come back even larger than before).
So, back to the Station Fire. Why is this fire so large, and what can we do once it is out? And is it true that the Forest managers should have done more “brush clearing” to prevent the fires? According to research by Drs. Jon Keeley and Paul Zedler, drought is probably the major reason for this fire and its large size. Their research showed that there have been eight extremely large megafires (150,000 acres or larger) since the 19th century and all were preceded by unusually long droughts. As Rick Halsey points out, “The main reason this fire spread as quickly as it did had more to do with the current long term drought conditions and steep terrain than the age of the vegetation.”
The San Gabriels are among the steepest and youngest of mountain ranges. With our Mediterranean climate, chaparral plants are uniquely adapted to live here and thrive with occasional burning. Trying to the strip the back country of native plants is most ineffective – think of the consequences from erosion alone. Before the County Flood Control District built the system of debris basins, foothills communities were regularly inundated by mudflows, the most disastrous of which occurred after fires. Not only would we suffer loss of life and property from mudflows, the damage to the watershed would result in even more water running off rather than percolating to refill our aquifers.
Homeowners can and should keep dry dead plants away from houses, but we have to stop making plants the villains. A laurel sumac bush kept watered and pruned is as fire resistant as a camellia and should be just as prized. In my neighborhood, we have just formed a Fire Safe Council to educate ourselves about best practices. What we have learned is how important it is to selectively remove certain plants – like pine and eucalyptus trees – and that making your house fire-safe is just as important, and maybe more important – than brush clearance. Enclose your roof vents and the sides of your porch. Use fire-resistant roofing. Windows should be double-paned. Keep tree limbs from overhanging your roof (oaks excepted). Every wildland community should incorporate as a Fire Safe Council.
Lastly, what to tell all those who want to volunteer…to do something? I would tell them to stay home and be patient. Support organizations whose work benefits the Forest (disclaimer – I am president of one non-profit and Executive Director of another that work to improve our watersheds and preserve wildlands). Wait until the Forest Supervisor says it is safe to go into the Forest again, and don’t pester land managers with demands that you be let in. Right now the recently burned lands are very fragile and more dangerous than usual. And please don’t go spreading seed (a topic for another day) – the chaparral has its own seed bank and will recover if we let it.
A final word from Rick Halsey: “Rather than blaming land managers, fire agencies, or environmental laws for the fire, we need to take responsiblity for our own properties, understand the natural environment in which we live, and value California’s most characteristic ecosystem, the chaparral.”
Microclimate Forms 