Emerging From the Ashes : Nearly All Forms of Southland Wildlife Suffered Loss of Habitat in the Wildfires, but Fish Might Feel the Worst Long-Term Effects Because of Damage to Streams

When fire sweeps across Southern California’s brush lands, deer, coyotes and foxes run. Birds fly. Smaller, slower creatures hole up in the bottoms of deep, damp ravines. Some rabbits, small rodents, snakes and lizards run, hop or slither fast enough or burrow deep enough to survive. Fish are safe . . . but perhaps not for long.

Long after the last embers have cooled, the insurance adjusters have crunched their numbers and the cries for fireproof-roofing laws have faded, the wildlife community will still be dealing with the 14 fires that recently consumed 731 structures and 173,000 acres in six Southern California counties.

The toll for wildlife is less immediate than for humans. Overall, preliminary inspections by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists indicate serious but not catastrophic damage to wildlife.

“We won’t likely have a complete solution to the puzzle until next spring,” said Larry Sitton, the California Department of Fish and Game’s supervisor of wildlife biologists for Southern California.

According to an extensive survey by Patrick Moore, Region 5 information officer for the California DFG, it might take much longer for the wildlife’s habitat to completely recover. Kevin Brennan, a DFG wildlife biologist in Riverside County, noted the loss of 25,000 acres of coastal sage scrub that was home to the California gnatcatcher, a bird listed as threatened by federal authorities.

“I don’t expect the seedbed to replace the sage for several decades,” Brennan said.

The USFWS biologists estimated after checking the areas that 159 pairs of gnatcatchers--6% of the population--perished or were displaced, along with 407 pairs, or 17% of the nation’s population, of the coastal cactus wren, a candidate for listing.

Said Peter Stine, acting field supervisor at the USFWS office in Carlsbad: “Recovery of these species and their habitat will depend upon how deeply the soil was burned, how well the burned areas re-establish vegetation and how easily recolonization of the emerging habitat by displaced birds occurs.”

A very hot fire destroys roots and inhibits regrowth.

But Bill Brown, a U.S. Forest Service biologist based in Arcadia, said reseeding was started by helicopter two weeks after the Altadena fire and that small animals and birds should soon have food and cover.

“Most of the chaparral is fire-adaptive,” Brown said. “In another couple of weeks you’ll see that stuff resprouting.”

Sitton pointed out that young, succulent chaparral sprouts are especially high in nutrition and that residue ash could even act as fertilizer.

As for other plant life, Brown said, “We have seeded quite a bit of the burned area, so you’re going to see some regrowth in native grasses on the slopes.”

By the end of today, Brown said, about 50,000 pounds of seed will have been dropped.

“The birds and small mammals will take advantage of just the seed,” he said.

The losses are greater than the food source, however. Trees and brush also provide cover for nesting and reproduction, as well as safety from predators. Wildlife authorities anticipate more reports of animal sightings in areas where they no longer have places to hide--and complaints from homeowners about creatures browsing in their gardens.

But don’t feed the animals. Handouts only encourage them toward dependence and invite the spread of disease. Better to resist the humane urge and let them go their natural way. Chances are, Sitton said, they will find food somewhere.

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Fire is part of the natural process to eliminate dead brush and renew the land with fresh growth. Long before man settled here, wildfires were common. The Spanish explorer Cabrillo dropped by San Pedro Bay in 1542 and dubbed it Bahia de Los Fumos --Bay of Smokes. Native Americans realized the benefits, often starting fires to renew their hunting grounds. Even today, remote fires that are no threat to humans or structures often are left to burn themselves out.

Controlled, or prescribed, burns are sometimes done to reduce natural fuel and regenerate habitat, but in most cases it is up to homeowners to clear their own lands.

However, Stine, of the USFWS, said, “It is questionable whether any fire prevention strategies--fire breaks, prescribed burning and weed abatement--could have coped with no way to do that, even if we had the wildfires of this intensity, fanned by hot, dry Santa Ana winds.”

But Brown suggested that some damage might have been averted by more controlled burns where open lands met residential areas bordering the Angeles National Forest, if it had not been for another Southland concern: clean air.

“Our burn program has been somewhat restricted because of air-quality issues over the last five years,” Brown said. “In our forest plan we said we were going to burn about 27,000 acres per year, but we knew there was manpower. We have to get approval from the Air Quality Management District. We’re lucky if we can burn 2-3,000 acres a year.

“It is effective. There was one burn the district pulled off on the upper west end of the burned area (in Altadena) within the last two or three years which actually stopped the fire. The fire burned up to it and there was no fuel to carry it (farther) at that point.”

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Fish are indirect victims of wildfires, especially when the flames are followed by heavy rains. Soil then erodes and silt flows into lakes and streams, suffocating fish, reptiles and amphibians and the aquatic invertebrates they feed upon.

Said Mike Giusti, a DFG inland fisheries biologist at Chino: “The most obvious problem is stream bed sedimentation. Over time, the silt will move during spring rains to cover nests, either smothering the eggs or covering the gravel, effectively cementing over the nests.”

Ash settling in the water also can cause a chemical imbalance, killing fish that are most susceptible to a high alkaline content.

Finally, the loss of trees robs fish of the shade they need to survive summer’s heat. Trout struggle when water temperatures climb into the 70s.

The most serious such impacts would seem to be on Malibu Creek, the southernmost steelhead habitat in the Western Hemisphere. The steelhead, which migrate from the sea through Malibu Lagoon, have been struggling for years. Now, with riparian vegetation in the creek and lagoon consumed, the steelhead are vulnerable to all of the above threats.

Also, many of the gnatcatchers and other small creatures now have no place to hide.

“There is just not enough suitable sage scrub habitat for the birds to disperse to,” Brennan said. “I expect the majority will fall prey to (hawks and eagles).”

Some wildlife was trapped in man-made confinement, such as the Laguna Laurel Ecological Reserve, an 82-acre riparian canyon three miles north of Laguna Beach once thick with sycamore, willow, laurel and other trees 50 years old or more. The DFG bought it last year to protect birds, mammals and reptiles for future generations.

The Southwestern Riverside County Multispecies Reserve in Riverside County near Lake Skinner was recently set aside by the Metropolitan Water District as mitigation for the planned construction of the giant Domenigoni Reservoir, so the wildlife would have someplace to go. Brennan said that 12,000 acres--nearly the entire land portion of the 20,000 acre reserve--were burned by the Winchester fire.

More than 40 animals were lost at the Eaton Canyon Park nature center in Altadena. The fire destroyed a nature library that had been assembled over 30 years. Two employees barely got out with their lives, unable to save anything except a computer.

Nature, left to its own devices, usually manages to recover, in its own time. Once grasses start to grow again, after the first light rains, the rabbits that survived will quickly start to reproduce.

The Stephens kangaroo rat, federally listed as endangered, could come out of it in good shape.

“The k-rat will burrow down some 18 inches below the surface,” Brennan said. “It’s unlikely they were damaged in any great numbers, and once the grasslands have established they will be even better off than before.”

The grass also will breed field mice and rats, providing normal forage for snakes--all part of the food chain.

Nobody knows exactly how it will all play out, but one thing is certain: Wildlife will go on.

Patrick Moore, Region 5 public information officer for the California Department of Fish and Game, contributed to this story.