Rangers Go Back to Maps for Clues on Future Fires

Somewhere in the sprawl of blotchy colors and squiggly lines, ecologist Ray Sauvajot could discern the makings of a fire management plan.

On one map, blobs of green, brown and orange represented various plants in the Santa Monica Mountains--each carrying a different amount of fuel, each with a different susceptibility to flame.

On another map, patches of red and purple sketched out the paths of past fires, indicating which tracts had been charred and which still held high-octane chaparral.

During the hectic, dramatic days of the Green Meadow and Malibu blazes, Sauvajot and other National Park Service employees generated scores of these maps. Using infrared cameras and satellite-controlled scanners, they plotted the devastation, picked out hot spots and helped firefighters determine where to make a stand.

This week, with the flames extinguished and the first winter rains falling, the park rangers turned back to their maps for clues about managing future disasters.

“If we know how fires work here, we can develop a strategy to control or minimize the really large, destructive fires like the ones we just had,” Sauvajot said.

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The Green Meadow blaze, which started near the Los Robles golf course in Thousand Oaks, ripped through 5,500 acres of National Park Service land in Ventura and Los Angeles counties. Another 360 acres of federal park land near Topanga Canyon were burned in the Malibu blaze.

National Park Service officials estimated they spent $1.3 million battling the wind-fanned fires, which destroyed several park service buildings and outhouses at the Circle X Ranch near Point Mugu State Park.

Although fire is a natural--and, for some species, vital--part of park ecology, rangers would prefer to control the flames themselves instead of watching helplessly as tens of thousands of acres sizzle at once.

“We’re never going to stop all fires, but we want to decrease their magnitude and danger,” explained Ishmael Messer, the National Park Service’s fire management specialist.

To that end, parks officials are poring over their maps.

Knowing which patches are covered with fire-boosting chaparral and which have been scorched to the roots can help rangers predict the course of future blazes. They can also use the maps to plan controlled burns, a vital weapon in their ongoing battle to preserve rugged wilderness.

During the Green Meadow blaze, flames swept around--but did not consume--about 1,000 acres near Newbury Park’s Broome Ranch that had been burned in a controlled fire last year. Other areas that had suffered fires within the last few years also survived the 1993 conflagrations and now stand as green islands in the blackened, smoky-smelling mountains.

The mosaic pattern that has emerged from the recent fires so impresses park officials that they hope to draft a controlled-burn strategy along the same lines--only with the ratio of charred land to lush vegetation reversed.

Ideally, the National Park Service would like to burn about 1,000 acres in the Santa Monica Mountains each year, officials said. But air-quality constraints, weather patterns and wary homeowners often block plans for controlled burns.

“People don’t like to see black earth out there,” said Chip Jenkins, a resource management specialist with the park service. “They don’t understand that if we don’t do prescribed fires, we will see big conflagrations like the ones we just had.”

Despite the recent devastation, Jenkins saw many positive signs during a Friday morning tour of Rancho Sierra Vista off Potrero Road in Thousand Oaks. Shoots of green sprouted from brittle, soot-covered scrubs, and viable seeds lay just beneath the fire-swept earth.

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The National Park Service opposes efforts to reseed burned earth with imported ryegrass, which spreads aggressively and chokes off native plants. Even without human intervention, Jenkins said, the rugged terrain will soon be carpeted with green stalks, and wildflowers should bloom in full force come spring.

“We all feel for people who are afraid of mudslides, and their natural reaction is to want . . . (government) spending tax dollars doing stuff to help them,” Jenkins said. “But the best bet is to let the seeds that are already there regenerate. If we have another quarter to half inch of rain, things will go gangbusters out here.”