Forest Plan Seeks to Balance Conflicts : Angeles Program Would Curb Fires, Offer Wide Appeal

If things go according to a recently completed 15-year plan, Angeles National Forest will have fewer catastrophic wildfires, a greater variety of wildlife and plant life and generally happier visitors, U.S. Forest Service officials say.

The federal agency has completed work on a “holistic” management plan to take the 1,000-square-mile forest into the 21st Century, balancing the needs of urban free spirits, sportsmen and a frequently battered environment, according to Forest Supervisor George Roby.

“It’s a very reasonable job of blending all the conflicting uses of the forest, and balancing them with the capabilities of the natural resources and the land,” Roby said.

The plan sets long-term priorities and forest management goals for an area that draws more than 27 million often contentious visitors a year. The forest encompasses about a quarter of Los Angeles County.

Conflict is a frequent theme in the forest, which Roby and others have compared to “a giant urban park.” Riders on all-terrain vehicles cross swords with picnickers, mountain bikers debate with hikers, and target-shooters, or “plinkers,” duck each other’s bullets.

The forest is the second-most-popular national forest in the nation (after Tonto National Forest in Arizona), and provides a natural setting for the recreational activities of about 8 million people in the Los Angeles area, Forest Service officials say.

7 Alternative Plans

The plan has evolved, over the past seven years, from a series of studies of the forest to seven alternative plans to the final version, which was released earlier this month. In the process, the U.S. Forest Service participated in 55 often clamorous meetings, heard the comments of more than 7,000 citizens and sent mailings to more than 5,500 organizations.

“There will be individuals and groups who will feel that their views weren’t given the consideration they deserved,” said Roby. “But I can honestly say that the views of all of those who had input during the long process were considered in preparing the plan.”

The U.S. Forest Service will begin implementing the plan Dec. 4.

Under terms of the plan, there will be a new network of trails for off-road vehicles, but vast areas now designated as “unrestricted” will be off limits to them. Target shooters will find themselves confined to 14 tightly regulated shooting areas. And mountain bikers, who test their mettle by pedaling down rugged trails, will be kept off some of the out-of-the-way hiking trails.

There will also be 112 miles of new hiking trails, new camping and picnic areas and a doubling of the amount of space devoted to skiing.

“Management of a forest tends to be an exercise in resolving conflicts between different users,” said Richard Modee, the forest’s principal planning officer.

The Angeles chapter of the Sierra Club has already expressed mild support for most aspects of the plan, though deep reservations about others. “I can’t say we’re 100% pleased by it,” said Fred Hoeptner, chairman of the group’s conservation subcommittee. He cited particularly an “equivocal” position on a proposal by the county Parks and Recreation Department for a site for a motocross track for competitive racing within the forest.

Off-Road Vehicle Areas

The federal plan does not totally rule out the proposal, but says it would require the approval of the Forest Service chief to grant such an exception.

The Forest Service plans to maintain three off-road-vehicle areas, including the Rincon area in the San Gabriel Canyon, which draws an estimated 200,000 vehicles a year. Water officials have expressed apprehensions that ORV users could contaminate the San Gabriel Reservoir, at the area’s southern edge, with chemical cleaning materials and other pollutants.

“Currently, we’re looking for ways to control (vehicle intrusions into the reservoir), whether by putting up barriers or increasing patrols,” said Modee. The Forest Service has already shut down the area at night. “That’s been a tremendous help in reducing the problems,” Modee said.

But the new emphasis will be on ORV trails. A network of 364 miles of ORV trails should be in place by the 21st Century, officials said, including extensive new trails on the northern slopes of the San Gabriel Mountains. There are currently 40 miles of ORV trails in the forest.

There will be additions to the ORV trails on the more popular southern slopes, including a new link north of Mt. Wilson, through Tujunga Canyon, and new loops in the low country north of Glendora. But the service has taken pains, Modee said, not to allow ORVs to intrude on “riparian” areas, where streams and ponds sustain a varied plant and animal life.

Hoeptner said that the Sierra Club supports the use of trails for ORVs, as long as the trails are “designed to limit the damage” to the ecology from the big-wheeled vehicles. He said the club was also pleased that the designation of a large area on the northern slopes of the San Gabriels as unrestricted had been removed.

‘Too Steep . . . Too Much Brush’

The Forest Service will reduce the amount of area available to unrestricted ORV use from 240,000 acres to only 265 acres. “The user groups themselves found that area to be undesirable,” said Modee, speaking of the northern parts of the San Gabriel Mountains. “They found much of it too steep, with too much brush, for use by ORVs.”

The Forest Service has already begun to impose new restrictions on the controversial shooting areas in the forest, which draw an estimated 500,000 “plinkers” a year. Two shooting areas that were “well-nigh impossible to manage,” Modee said, have been closed in recent years. Others have shrunk from broadly unrestricted shooting areas to strictly designated target ranges.

The plan notes that about 53,000 acres of the forest has been eliminated from the target shooting system, leaving a more controlled 5,120 acres.

“There’s always a wide variety of users, from people with no experience at all with weapons to people who were very experienced,” said Modee. “The problem is that people come in who really don’t understand what a shooting area is all about.”

Six people have been killed by stray bullets in the past five years, and there have been numerous injuries, including seven this year. Forest Service officials say the shooters are also responsible for a large number of fires. About 10% of the fires reported in the forest this year began in shooting areas, including the forest’s biggest fire of 1987, which consumed 11,000 acres in the Castaic Lake region.

Officials say that the emphasis will be on enforcement in the shooting areas, which are now often unpatrolled. Sheriff’s deputies and Forest Service agents have already begun enforcing new rules prohibiting alcoholic beverages in the shooting areas, Modee said.

Targets Become Trash

Patrols will begin to enforce littering regulations as well, he said. “People bring in a lot of things for targets that end up as trash,” said Modee. “We’re not going to allow them to bring in old refrigerators or television sets.”

One of the most ambitious aspects of the plan is its proposal to modify the forest’s ecological system by diversifying plant life and, thus, reducing the chances of widespread wildfires.

“Historically, what happens in the forest is you have 500 acres wiped out in a single fire,” said Modee. “Then it all grows back, with plant life at the same age, eventually making it vulnerable to wildfire again.”

The Angeles has one of the “most dramatic wildfire histories” of any national forest, the plan notes. Wide swaths of dry, brush-like chaparral vegetation, much of it in steep inaccessible terrain, are particularly vulnerable to fire in a climate that produces extended periods of dry weather and Santa Ana winds, officials say. About 18,500 acres of forest a year are burned in wildfires, many of them set by visitors, they say.

Experts estimate that, in the chaparral type of setting found in the lower reaches of the Angeles, the forest develops enough dead brush after 10 years to make great tracts of it susceptible to wildfire.

The Forest Service, which already does extensive prescribed burning in the Angeles, proposes to step up the pace of burning and to use planting programs to create an “age and class mosaic,” with more diversity in age and species in adjacent areas.

170 Miles of ‘Fuelbreaks’

Forest workers will also install 170 miles of new “fuelbreaks,” strips of forest whose dead vegetation has been cleaned out, frequently replaced with new greenery. The effect is to slow a fire’s spread, especially across ridge lines.

“There’s no way to ever eliminate wildfires,” Modee said. “What you do is make them smaller.”

Officials emphasize that all the plan’s innovations will not go into effect immediately. “Bureaucracy moves real slow,” Modee said. “A plan of this comprehensiveness you don’t implement overnight.” For example, under the best of circumstances, the Forest Service will build an average 32 miles of new ORV trails a year, Modee said.

To carry out the Angeles plan, forest officials will seek a budget increase to $23.7 million from the current annual figure of $16 million, Roby said.

Citizens wishing to appeal parts of the plan have until Dec. 21 to submit their complaints to Regional Forester Paul Barker, at regional headquarters in San Francisco.

Though the management plan theoretically directs the forest through the next 15 years, Forest Service officials are already gearing up for a new round of planning. Said Modee: “Southern California changes so rapidly, we’ll probably have to do the next plan before the 15 years are over.”

15-year plan calls for:

324 miles of new off-road vehicle trails; drastic reduction in area available to unrestricted ORV use.

14 tightly regulated target shooting areas on 5,120 acres.

112 miles of new hiking trails; new camping and picnic areas.

Curbs on mountain bikers on some out-of-the-way hiking trails.

A doubling of area to be devoted to skiing.