COUNTYWIDE : Cool Summer Gets Credit for Few Fires

Forestry officials, declaring the fire season over in Los Padres National Forest, have credited the coolest summer on record for making the season one of the least damaging ever.

The season ended Monday, and a ban on wood fires outside official campgrounds that was imposed in May was lifted, said Thom Myall, fire management officer for the U.S. Forest Service.

Because of the low fire risk, the Forest Service never called for tighter restrictions on fires or closed any of the 200,000 acres of backcountry to visitors--measures that are almost routine during most fire seasons.

By the end of the season, only 77 incidents were reported in or near Los Padres National Forest that required a response by firefighters. In an average year, 90 to 100 are reported, said Earl Clayton, a Forest Service spokesman.

Only one of the incidents resulted in a major fire, when the coals from a careless camper’s fire ignited the Lion’s fire in October that scorched 1,900 acres of brush in the Ojai area.

“We feel fortunate that we had a cool summer,” Clayton said.

In fact, the summer was the coolest since record-keeping was begun in the area in 1886, Clayton said. High humidity and low temperatures combined to keep the moisture level of vegetation higher than usual, he said.

Before the fire season began, forestry officials prepared for the worst after five years of drought had dried the brush to dangerous levels. “Those projections were based on solid facts and figures,” Myall said. “The year just ended really indicates how much Southern California is subject to the whims of Mother Nature,” Myall said.