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Fire Article
Wild Fires of 2007
This article below
reveals the lasting affects of the
devastating fires we have suffered out
here in California. One of the
endangered birds, (severely impacted by
the fires - as you will read below), is
the Cactus Wren. I have seen and heard
them while out birding, they are a
fabulous bird
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Cactus_Wren.html
There is so little left
of wild habitat, when there are fires of
this magnitude they put a huge strain on
the creatures hanging on to survive...
that's why we must work to save and
restore as much native habitat as
possible. Please join me in these
efforts!
Frequent fires slow nature's
rebound time
Scientists fear blazes will
contribute to winter
landslides, water
contamination and further
loss of imperiled animal
populations.
By Janet Wilson and Molly
Hennessy-Fiske
Los Angeles Times Staff
Writers
November 4, 2007
Wildfires that tore through
more than half a million
acres in Southern California
have left hundreds of homes
vulnerable to mudslides and
may have wiped out critical
habitat for fast-dwindling
species, wildlife and
emergency management
officials said.
Federal and local
authorities are scrambling
to stabilize hillsides
before winter rain arrives,
hoping to prevent landslides
and ensure that silt and ash
do not further harm
reservoirs, watersheds and
bottomlands that shelter
arroyo toads, songbirds and
centuries-old coast live
oaks.
"We're pushing up against
winter fast," said Todd
Ellsworth, a federal soils
scientist overseeing teams
that fanned out across seven
counties last week to assess
fire damage and the perils
ahead. "Every one of these
major burn areas is above
homes; they are near many,
many homes. Our top priority
is to minimize threats to
those communities."
Five people died in a
massive mudslide in San
Bernardino County on
Christmas Day in 2003, two
months after wildfires
ravaged steep slopes above
their church camp.
Water quality is also a
concern. Destroyed home
sites and drifting ash may
contain lead, copper or
other toxic substances that
can leach into creek beds or
runoff, killing wildlife and
possibly contaminating
municipal water supplies,
said Ellsworth.
More than 20 small water
systems in Los Angeles and
San Diego counties whose
customers include
restaurants, mobile home
parks and community centers,
are under mandatory orders
to boil water because of
wildfire damage and
subsequent bacterial
contamination, said
California Department of
Public Health spokeswoman
Lea Brooks.
San Diego water officials
also fear that runoff from
burned areas will cascade
down the denuded slopes
above Hodges, Sutherland and
Barrett reservoirs, where
fires burned nearly to
shorelines. "Keep Out" signs
are being posted to try to
prevent off-road vehicle
users and cyclists from
breaking through the crusty
soil and creating gullies
and ravines.
Although damage assessments
are not complete, experts
said the increasing rate of
wildfires over the last
several years has put
enormous pressure on
wildlife that had already
been pushed into smaller
habitats by development.
The coastal cactus wren, a
large songbird with a
chortling call, and two rare
species of butterfly appear
to have lost their largest
known populations in the
Witch and Santiago fires.
The cactus wren, which
hunkers down rather than
flying away during blazes,
nests in mature, decades-old
stands of prickly pear
cactus. Many of those
cactuses are now melted
ruins.
The caterpillar of the
Hermes copper butterfly
lives in one kind of
redberry bush that has been
burned or bulldozed for
development across much of
San Diego County. The
Thorne's hairstreak
butterfly can survive only
on the rare Tecate cypress
tree, which needs flame to
release its seeds but cannot
withstand too-frequent fire.
Many of those trees burned
in the previous fires in the
last five years. San Diego
County wildlife staff said
they believed some of the
butterfly populations had
survived last month's fires.
In addition, massive live
oaks that had withstood
centuries of flame and flood
are toppling at an alarming
rate in burned areas. Trish
Smith, a biologist with the
Nature Conservancy, surveyed
the skeletal, splayed
remains of a once-thriving
oak woodland along Santiago
Canyon Road in eastern
Orange County on Wednesday.
"This is bad," she said.
"These poor, poor oaks; they
were probably 200 years
old."
The Santiago fire, which
officials say was caused by
arson, charred more than
28,000 acres, including 90%
of Limestone Canyon, which
burned in a 1998 fire. That
blaze had left many of the
massive old trees with
"heart rot" at their base,
diminishing their ability to
resist subsequent spring
floods and severe drought.
"This fire will just
exacerbate that," Smith
said. "A lot of trees are
splitting in two already and
falling."
Ecologists said that
although Southern California
landscapes have evolved to
burn and flood, the greater
frequency of fires and
mudslides caused by humans
does not allow the decades
necessary for recovery of
chaparral and riparian
woodlands.
"One of the greatest fire
tragedies for nature has
been the re-burning of areas
lost in 2003 . . . that had
only just begun to recover,"
said David Hogan of the San
Diego office of the Center
for Biological Diversity.
"This may be the last straw
for many endangered species
that have already suffered
so much habitat loss to
development and overly
frequent fire."
The latest firestorms
threaten to undo years of
work spent cobbling together
nature preserves that
protected mam- mal
crossings, unique habitat
and food sources. Dick
Bobertz, executive director
of the San Dieguito River
Park, said the Witch fire
scorched 75% of the park's
80,000-acre greenbelt and
destroyed the park
headquarters.
Some populations of wildlife
that suffered losses in the
fire, such as jackrabbits,
easily recover, biologists
said. Other species, such as
kangaroo rats, which burrow
underground to survive
blazes, thrive in post-fire
conditions.
But measures to save
homeowners and roads from
torrential mudslides can
hamper some species'
recovery.
San Diego County water
authority officials said
they will reinforce
hillsides with
hydro-seeding, a technique
that blasts green seeds at
embankments.
Conservationists cringe,
saying past efforts to plant
fast-growing ground cover
have inadvertently
introduced exotic, highly
flammable grasses that
replaced native growth used
as forage and shelter by
Southern California fauna.
The practice can also leave
behind thick mats of seed
that keep native seeds from
germinating.
While biologists sifted
through ashy slopes last
week, looking and listening
anxiously for signs of life,
nervous residents peered up
at charred hills and
wondered what awaited them.
Poway city staffers last
week said they probably
would put down straw bales
to stabilize the massive,
burned hill behind the home
of Kathy DeBolt, 42, an art
broker who has lived on her
small ranch at the end of a
dirt road since 1996.
DeBolt has seen city staff
spray seed on hills in the
past, "but it may not be
possible on that hill, it's
so steep" she said.
Orange County public works
officials aren't waiting for
fed- eral burn teams to
finish their inspections. By
midweek, truckers who had
driven through the night
from Central California were
already unloading thousands
of bales of rice straw for
use along ravaged Santiago
Canyon Road.
There are reasons for hope.
Herds of deer and a male
mountain lion have already
been spotted in the area.
Smith listened in vain for a
pair of cactus wrens
formerly living in a patch
of prickly pear cactus on
scorched Loma Ridge. But she
spotted a Bewick's wren in
an unscathed lemonade berry
bush. A fat raven perched
nearby, and a northern
harrier and flock of turkey
vultures circled overhead.
"It's good eating for them
right now," she said. "All
the bushes that didn't burn
are going to be loaded with
birds."
Glancing down, she pointed
to stubby, brown bumps
dotting the burned hillside.
"Those are all native bunch
grasses adapted to fire,"
she said. "They'll be
blooming any second now."
janet.wilson@latimes.com
molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com
Times staff writers Tony
Perry, Louis Sahagun and
Margot Roosevelt contributed
to this report.
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