Healing the Scars : Porter Ranch Residents Plant Wildflowers on Burned Hills

Embers were still glowing on the hillsides above Porter Ranch when residents decided the best way to put the devastating fire behind them would be to blanket the charred slopes with wildflowers.

“We were standing in the middle of the street looking at the hills and the idea just came out of our need to do something,” said Mary Edwards, one of the effort’s organizers. “It hurt so much to see everything all burned.”

On Dec. 9, a fire driven by fierce Santa Ana winds roared through a 3,700-acre area above Northridge, destroying 15 homes in the Porter Ranch neighborhood and damaging 25 others.

In the days after the blaze, Edwards and several other area residents began raising money to carpet the blackened hillsides with orange and pink poppies, red Indian paintbrush and other native wildflowers. So far, the group has received enough donations to thinly sow about 100 of the 3,700 scorched acres with wildflower seeds.

About 90 pounds of seeds were donated by the Stover Seed Co. and Builders Emporium, and about $500 was given by the Los Angeles law firm of O’Melveny & Myers, said Robert Birch, a Porter Ranch homeowner and playwright. And two homeowner groups--the North Valley Coalition and the Granada Hillside Property Owners Assn.--have donated $100 worth of seeds, he said.

Residents need to raise at least $160,000 more to plant wildflowers over the entire burned area, Birch said. They have sent letters to Los Angeles City Council members and area businesses asking for money and are canvassing the area’s 3,000 families for funds, he said.

Birch said that some sort of beautification program is necessary because otherwise the regeneration of native vegetation would occur slowly. City and county officials have decided to allow most of the area to grow back naturally.

City workers will sow ryegrass seeds on only one to two acres above residential areas to reduce chances of erosion and mudslides, leaving the rest of the area untouched, said Patrick Kennedy, a senior maintenance supervisor for the Recreation and Parks Department.

The park’s natural grass will begin to return in one to three months, while chaparral growth can take up to three years, Kennedy said.

Homes Repaired

“Right now, it’s like a scar you have to heal,” said Birch, 41, gesturing toward the barren slopes during a recent stroll through the neighborhood. On weekdays, construction crews can be seen repairing homes whose blackened facades appear out of place along the area’s winding streets and dozens of short cul-de-sacs.

Russell Boxley, a consulting psychologist for the Los Angeles City Fire Department who specializes in emotional trauma resulting from natural disasters, said the wildflower program is “a natural response to the jeopardy the neighbors were put in because of the fire.”

Residents learned that “there are limitations to mastering their own environment,” and they have reacted “to show they do have some control over that environment” by cultivating it, Boxley said.

“It’s a very positive response as opposed to giving up and going away or being depressed,” he said. “Out of the ashes will rise more than there was before.”

But some observers said that the reseeding is unnecessary and that city funds would be better spent on more vital programs. Porter Ranch residents, many of whom own homes in the $400,000 range, should pay for the reseeding themselves, they said.

“They just desire a different look to the area, and we can understand that,” said Greg Smith, chief deputy for Councilman Hal Bernson, whose district includes the fire-ravaged area. “But it is not a necessary expenditure of public funds because the experts tell us it will regenerate naturally.”

The area probably will experience “the most beautiful wildflower show in years” anyway because dormant seeds that are buried in the earth usually bloom after a fire, said Melanie Baer, manager of the Theodore Payne Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Sun Valley that is devoted to preserving California native plants.

Such seeds require heat to germinate, and they thrive in burned areas because the soil contains rich nutrients such as potash as a result of the fire, Baer said.

Nevertheless, the foundation has offered to sell wildflower seeds to residents at a discount because it supports any effort to cultivate native plants. The discount price of the hand-gathered seeds ranges from $55 to $85 a pound, Baer said.

Don Mullally, senior gardener for O’Melveny Park, a 714-acre preserve that was scorched by the fire, said residents would need to scatter about two pounds of seed per acre. He said seeding may be necessary because decades of cattle-grazing in the area could have destroyed most of the dormant wildflower seeds.

Warren Christopher, chairman of the law firm O’Melveny & Myers, which made a cash donation for seeds, said the firm “is anxious to support any volunteer effort to make the park more attractive.” John O’Melveny, the company’s founder, donated the parkland to the city in 1973.

Edwards, who has lived down the street from the park for 20 years, called its once-verdant slopes “restorative. You can go into the hills and find yourself in a place that lifts the soul--far away from the urban clamor.” She said that contrary to popular belief, many residents cannot afford to finance the reseeding program themselves.

“I’m the wife of a schoolteacher, and we have seven children, so donating even $5 for the wildflower seeds was a lot for us,” Edwards said. “The park was something we could enjoy for free, and we’re going to work toward getting it back to looking the way it was or even better.”