Paradise Lost : Ortega Highway Reopens but Fire Has Robbed Area of Its Beauty

Black, dusty and stark, the landscape off Ortega Highway seemed more like an alien planet than a hikers’ paradise.

Only a few nature lovers could be seen Monday in the San Juan Loop Trail area--normally a holiday weekend mecca for hikers and sightseers. One couple, emerging at the end of the trail, said they were awed and disturbed by the destruction wreaked by the brush fire that had raged in Cleveland National Forest in Orange and Riverside counties.

“It was like seeing a black-and-white movie,” said Chris Psaros, 26, of Mission Viejo. “Yet people we met on the trail told us the area used to be very green and beautiful.”

Her hiking companion, Craig Staller, 29, of Glendale, said they found some pockets of green on the once-scenic trail. “Down by the creek bed there’s some green, and we found areas where the fire hadn’t burned tops of some trees,” Staller said.

But for most of the hiking area, Staller and Psaros said, the view was the same as the harsh, charred scene from Ortega Highway.

The highway, closed since the fire began last Tuesday, reopened late Sunday night. Traffic remained fairly light most of Monday, officials said. Some of the drivers were commuters going to work in Orange County from homes in the Lake Elsinore area. They saw hills and mountains stripped of color except for ash gray and ebony.

A few huge boulders stood out strangely in the black surroundings.

“Craig and I were saying those big rocks up there look like something from Easter Island,” said Psaros, referring to the mysterious black stone carvings found on that South Pacific island.

Staller gazed around at the fire-blackened land and said: “We’ve never hiked this trail before. Today Chris and I just decided to go out, and she was wondering if Ortega would be open because of the fire. . . . It’s a shame that so much burned.”

U.S. Forest Service officials said Monday that the exact cause of the fire remained unsolved.

“We know it was caused by a human, but we don’t know if it was accidental or arson,” said Norman Machado, a fire information officer for the U.S. Forest Service.

Machado and scores of weary firefighters rested Monday afternoon in camp areas set up for them at Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park in Orange County, about five miles from where the fire broke out near the Riverside County border. The fire spread to the edge of Lake Elsinore and engulfed 7,880 acres before being contained Saturday, Machado said.

“A few hot spots still remain out there in the wilderness, and we have men fighting them today,” Machado said. “We expect to have the fire controlled by Wednesday.”

The fire destroyed six mobile homes and six cabins in its sweep across Cleveland National Forest, Machado said.

“At one time we had 1,400 people here to fight the fire, but today we’re down to 500,” he added.

Some firefighters had suffered injuries. A bulletin board at Caspers park on Monday afternoon tallied the firefighter injuries since last Tuesday: 16 incidents of heat exhaustion; 15 people with 24-hour viruses; two back injuries; 15 cases of poison oak; one bee-sting reaction; one asthma attack; one thigh puncture, and one cut finger. Most of the injured had been treated and released, Machado said.

The dollar loss is now estimated at $1.1 million, Machado said. But the figure does not include losses to some private businesses between San Juan Capistrano and Lake Elsinore. For instance, at San Juan Capistrano Hot Springs Resort, just east of Caspers park, attendance was low Monday, despite the upcoming holiday.

“The fire had a serious impact on the number of people who would normally come to our resort,” said owner Bob Richardson. “All told, on a four-day weekend such as this one, we’d normally have about 3,000 persons during those days, and it looks like we’re going to have only about 1,000.” Richardson said public confusion about when Ortega Highway would open worsened the problem.

A few miles east on Ortega Highway, Jim Foster, owner of the Ortega Oaks Park

campground and candy store, had only a sprinkling of customers Monday afternoon. Comparatively few tourists were in the area. Nonetheless, Foster said he was grateful that his store and campground had escaped the fire.

“We were an island that survived despite the fire all around us,” Foster said. “The worst day was on Tuesday, when the fire started. I didn’t know if this place was going to go up or not. As it turned out, we had no loss at all” on the campground land.

But just across Ortega Highway from the campground and candy store, the entrance to San Juan Loop Trail showed the ravages of the intense fire. It was here, the beginning and end of the loop trail, that hikers Psaros and Staller emerged.

They looked back at the blackened brush and denuded hills they had circled. And they said they were concerned that so much damage could happen to a spot of natural beauty.

“This will take a long time to recover and be green again,” Staller said.