Healing Scars of Forest Fire: Job for Special Team

As the 1,400 firefighters who fought the 3,900-acre fire in the Angeles National Forest for the last four days won their battle Wednesday when the blaze was fully contained, a six-man team of U.S. Forest Service specialists geared up for another challenge--to restore the wilderness habitat as quickly as possible.

It is a process that will take months, and while this kidney-shaped fire was not as large as some, it devastated some valuable wilderness. The flames burned along the west fork of the San Gabriel River, an area precious to fly fishermen because it is one of few areas in Southern California with water pure enough for trout to breed. The fire also moved north along the Bear Canyon Trail, the only hiking trail into that area of the San Gabriel wilderness, and destroyed some camping areas.

The most damaging effect of the blaze could be soil erosion, which stands to imperil the annual trout spawning next spring, Forest Service experts say, and might also affect the future water supply of the San Gabriel Reservoir.

“If there’s enough rain, (the soil) will be flushed down to the reservoir, which is a major flood-control structure and important for water conservation,” said Max Copenhagen, 38, a water quality specialist heading the rehabilitation team.

‘Concerned About the Debris’

“We are concerned about the debris and we’ll be looking into the fire’s effect,” said Roslyn Robson, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County Public Works Department, which operates and maintains the reservoir.

Since most public attention is given to fires themselves, rehabilitation teams, which routinely work on federal land after forest fires larger than 300 acres, are relatively unknown. But they have to work fast to determine what can and cannot be done to help restore the balance of nature in burn areas.

The Tecolote fire--as this one was named, after a Forest Service pine tree plantation close to the fire’s origin--started around 1:30 p.m. Sunday when an unidentified group of visitors left hot barbecue coals along Highway 39, the main road into the forest.

By 6 a.m. Monday, as the fire reached 3,000 acres and was burning out of control, the rehabilitation team assembled at the Forest Service’s Arcadia center. It included a water quality specialist, a wildlife biologist, a soil scientist and three assistants.

“Our main objective is to determine what is feasible to prevent or minimize soil erosion,” Copenhagen said Wednesday as he and his team members prepared to walk Bear Canyon Trail for their first close look at the fire damage.

Aside from the potential threat to trout and other native fish, the area may be without some of its native wildlife, particularly deer, for “up to 10 years,” according to Steve Loe, a wildlife specialist on the team. Deer are rarely killed by fire, Loe said, since they are able to run clear of the flames, but they probably will not be able to return to their habitat. After fires there are usually stands of unburned vegetation that provide cover for animals as burn areas grow back, he said, but this time, “there are hardly any.”

The reason, said Angeles National Forest’s Mt. Baldy District Ranger Donald Stikkers, is that that particular area had not had a fire since 1956. “The fire burned with great intensity,” he said, “because of all the chaparral and build-up of dead plants over the years.”

The soil erosion from steep mountain slopes can occur from what is called “dry rabble” movement already occurring due to gravity, according to Tom Ryan, the team’s Forest Service soil specialist, or from future rain that can flood into mountain streams leading into the west fork.

“We noticed some of that dry rabble had completely filled up parts of the streams on the far west side with five-foot-high piles of dirt, “ Loe said.

If more silt gets deposited in the gravel of the west fork, he added, “it can reduce spawning. Trout need clean gravel to spawn in.”

The initial effort of the team’s work was to advise the firefighters, Copenhagen said, by supplying information on where the terrain was steepest and least passable, or on the location of Indian archeological sites in the wilderness so that firefighting equipment could be kept clear.

Now, he added, the emphasis will be on where to reseed the denuded mountains and which types of fast-growing grasses to use.

“There’s a limit to what can be done,” he said. “Being wilderness, we’ve got to minimize the long-term influence of man’s activity.”