Officials Warn of Worst Fire Season; Brush Die-Back Cited

Los Angeles may have the worst fire season ever this summer because of the die-back that has killed about half the wild brush in the county, the chiefs of the city and county fire departments warned Wednesday.

The die-back, which began five years ago, has been steadily worsening and has killed all the brush in the hardest-hit areas of the San Gabriel and Santa Monica mountains, fire and forestry officials told a news conference.

The dead brush ignites more easily, burns hotter and causes fires to spread faster, which will make brush fires in the coming summer and fall months more dangerous than in past years, said county fire chief John W. Englund.

“We have the potential of the worst fire season ever,” said Englund, whose official title is county forester and fire warden.

He estimated that “40% to 50% of the brush in the county has died.”

In the past, brush fires were most dangerous during periods of Santa Ana winds, but generally could be controlled the remainder of the time with little or no danger, he said. The die-back has changed the picture, he said, causing the fire danger season to begin earlier and increasing the danger of a catastrophic fire, even without Santa Ana winds.

‘60 Tons of Fuel Per Acre’

The death of the vegetation has left “up to 60 tons of fuel per acre” in mountain neighborhoods of multimillion-dollar homes, city Fire Chief Donald O. Manning said.

Englund, Manning and federal and state forestry officials spoke at a county Fire Department camp in Altadena, urging that homeowners in brushy areas clear vegetation away from their homes and be more alert for arsonists.

The cause of the die-back is not completely understood, but it is believed to be a combination of factors, including damage by a root fungus, botryosphaeria ribis , and a weather pattern that included heavy rains in 1982 and 1983 followed by years of drought.

The fungus, identified by state researchers in 1986, is usually present in the chaparral and apparently cannot harm healthy plants by itself, said Philip J. Riggan, a scientist with the U.S. Forest Service who has been the leading researcher on the die-back. The fungus apparently attacks brush that has been weakened by other factors, he said.

There is increasing, but not yet conclusive, evidence that air pollution also plays a role in weakening the brush, Riggan said. The die-back is heavier in high-pollution areas, such as the slopes of the San Gabriel Mountains that face the city than in low-pollution areas like the western Santa Monica Mountains near the ocean.

The die-back first appeared in the San Gabriel Mountains. It is still most serious in Los Angeles County, researchers and fire officials agreed. But it has spread throughout Southern California and is killing brush from the Mexican border to Santa Barbara and inland to Riverside.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has been using satellites and high-altitude flights by ER-2 planes--an earth resources version of the U-2 spy plane--to monitor the extent and spread of the die-back, which shows up on infrared film. The latest overflight was made Wednesday.

Dead Brush on Rise

In the past six months alone, there has been “a dramatic increase, at least 20%,” in the amount of dead brush, said James Brass, a researcher from the NASA office at Moffett Field near San Francisco. In some areas, only 30% of the chaparral that was alive in 1982 pictures has survived, he said.

Riggan and county Fire Capt. Scott Franklin, who have been tracking the spread of the die-back, said in recent months that it has spread for the first time to altitudes above 3,000 feet and is destroying brush at elevations of more than 5,000 feet.

In some of the worst-hit areas, such as the San Gabriel slopes above Sunland-Tujunga and La Canada Flintridge, virtually all the brush is dead, they said. “The satellite data backs that up,” Brass said.