Official Calls Canyon Above Beverly Hills a ‘Dynamite Situation’ for Brush Fires

Drought, dead chaparral and nearly a century of good fortune have turned Franklin Canyon, above Beverly Hills, into the area’s prime candidate for a wildfire this fall, fire officials said.

“Conditions are absolutely critical,” said Los Angeles County Fire Capt. Scott Franklin. “We have a really dynamite situation going on.”

Fire officials are divided on whether conditions in Franklin Canyon rival--or surpass--others they have seen, but they agree that the situation there is precarious. City, county and National Parks Service officials were sufficiently alarmed to meet to prepare for a potential disaster that they said could compare with the 1961 Bel-Air fire, in Stone Canyon, which destroyed more than 400 homes.

The two canyons are similar in that they are close to populous neighborhoods of luxury homes that could be quickly engulfed by flames, Franklin and other officials said.

Far More Ominous

The similarity ends when the extent of highly flammable, dead chaparral is compared. Recent measurements show Franklin Canyon’s conditions are far more ominous that those in Stone Canyon in 1961, with twice as much dead brush as was measured in Stone Canyon 28 years ago, Franklin said.

In the next few weeks, county crews are scheduled to begin clearing and pruning brush to carve out several fire breaks on 440 acres of National Parks Service land in the canyon, which stretches from Beverly Drive and Franklin Canyon Road on the west to Coldwater Canyon Drive on the east. Nothing is now planned for the area’s largest landholder--the Department of Water and Power.

Officials agree these steps are insufficient to protect the canyon. If luck holds through this fire season, they recommend a controlled burn program similar to one begun several years ago as Stone Canyon once again became a fire menace. Bel-Air residents, wary of another fire, lobbied for the controlled burn; others feared that a controlled burn in an urban area was potentially as dangerous as any brush fire.

Franklin, who has been overseeing the county’s controlled burns for 10 years, said such a burn is essential for Franklin Canyon soon. Otherwise, he said, “If we do have a fire, it could run through the canyon.”

Fire Service ‘Nightmare’

A chief element of the Franklin Canyon danger--and its slightly less endangered next-door neighbor, Benedict Canyon--is its population density, an “absolute nightmare for fire services” in terms of access and proximity to people and their homes, said U. S. Forest Service scientist Philip Riggan.

“Watch out below if there are north winds. That area from Benedict Canyon to Coldwater is dynamite,” he said.

“Below” are the mansions of Beverly Hills.

Or, as Franklin’s counterpart with the city of Los Angeles, Battalion Chief Robert Mac Millan explained, “You’d have a heckuva problem heading your way.”

In addition to Santa Ana winds from the north, Mac Millan said normal onshore winds from the south-southwest could fan a wildfire, given current conditions.

A confluence of factors puts Franklin Canyon at high risk, even among other imperiled areas in the Santa Monica Mountains, any of which could ignite during the fire season, officials said.

Chaparral Dying

Franklin Canyon, like the rest of the local mountain areas, is more vulnerable than usual because the chaparral has been dying at an accelerated rate since 1985. Riggan, who has studied the phenomenon, has concluded that the unusual “die-back” is the handiwork of “canker fungus,” a conclusion not universally accepted by other experts.

This blight may have run amok because of drastic weather changes--a record-setting wet El Nino condition of several years, followed by a severe drought.

The rain encouraged lush growth, more and longer stems and leaves, which, in turn, became all the more desperate when deprived of moisture. “It throws a tremendous shock through the system,” Franklin said.

This pattern may be a harbinger of the “greenhouse effect,” the warming of the Earth’s atmosphere predicted if and when major climatic changes upend nature’s cyclical patterns, he said.

Air pollution, acting alone or in concert with other stresses, may also have weakened the shrubbery, causing it to dry and die before its time, leaving volatile piles of fuel awaiting incineration.

Rapid Deterioration

As vegetation management coordinator for Los Angeles, Mac Millan said he teaches firefighters how to recognize and assess local plant life. He said his slides from the last four years “just slap you in the face” with their graphic depiction of wasted plant life. “Areas nice and green four years ago are entirely dead.”

The recent vegetation casualties have a lot of company in Franklin Canyon, which is sort of a graveyard of dead biomass accumulated over nearly a century. In that time the canyon has escaped a major fire.

Cyclical fires occurring every 20 to 25 years are nature’s way of brush clearance, making way for new growth.