Burn Experiment Displaces Weeds From Poppy Reserve

It is hard to imagine a sight more perfect than the California Poppy Reserve in full, fiery orange bloom. But that hasn’t stopped the staff of the 1,700-acre Antelope Valley landmark from trying to improve it.

Concerned that nonnative grasses and wildflowers were cramping the space of the delicate state flower and inhibiting its growth, the reserve’s staff decided to weed out the interlopers by fire last fall.

This week, the reserve happily pronounced its experiment with “prescribed fire” a success. The 35-acre test site where a purposely set blaze raged for two hours has produced poppies more glorious and plentiful than in the rest of the park, officials said.

“All the dead, brown grasses from last year are missing. You can see the line of demarcation between the burn area and the non-burn area quite clearly,” said Mary Lou MacKenzie, an interpretive specialist at the reserve.

The reserve issued its status report on the poppies’ progress as the city prepared for the annual California Poppy Festival, which is scheduled for April 13-14 and expected to draw 75,000 people. MacKenzie said that while scattered poppies have already appeared, the flowers should be at their peak at festival time.

“Right now it’s still patchy in the reserve, but if people give it another couple of weeks, we should have a good display both in the reserve and on the surrounding hills,” she said.

The patch that was purposely burned is located next to the reserve visitors center. In a procedure similar to methods foresters use to clear brush from national parks, workers from several government agencies and volunteer groups built a firebreak around the 35-acre site before torching it.

MacKenzie said that although nonnative plant species are not new to the reserve--they were borne there as seeds in the imported feed of animals who roamed the Antelope Valley around the turn of the century--they have become a problem because there has not been a naturally occurring fire to eradicate them since the early 1980s.

The reserve had tried prescribed fires to create some breathing room for the poppies during the previous two springs. But the fall burn seems to have been more effective, and future burns will probably be held then, MacKenzie said.

The California Poppy Reserve is located 15 miles west of Lancaster. For an update on the blooms, the reserve operates a 24-hour hotline: (805) 724-1180.