Frequent fires slow nature's rebound time

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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