Flames Will Lead to More Nutritious Plants for Wildlife

It gobbled all the grass in its path, stripped thick chaparral bare, scorched trees and blackened 10,400 acres, but biologists say the Grand fire ultimately did nature a favor.

As it burned over the slopes of San Cayetano Mountain, the fire cleared out acres of woody chaparral estimated to be 60 to 100 years old, leaving room for animals to move more easily along wildlife corridors and for plants to sprout new, more nutritious growth as early as next spring.

“It opened up room for a whole lot of new vegetation,” said George Garcia, a resource officer with Los Padres National Forest who will lead a team into the burn area today to assess the ecological impact. “What is burning now will re-sprout from its base, and it’ll be very healthy forage for wildlife.”

The assessment team will include a hydrologist, a soil scientist, a geologist and biologists. By helicopter and on foot, members of the team will head up and over the mountain to see what kind of damage has been done in the back country.

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They will be looking for potential landslide sites and areas that may need to be reseeded in order to bounce back. They will also examine sediments to see what effect the fire will have on watersheds, particularly on the ecologically delicate Sespe Creek and Santa Clara River.

Two endangered species that live in the region, the Arroyo toad and the California condor, escaped the fire unscathed. Although the fire jumped Sespe Creek, it burned far south of the part where the frogs make their home.

One condor and a U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service biologist were evacuated early Monday from the Hopper Mountain Refuge east of the fire zone. Agency officials said the move was purely precautionary.

Biologists said large animals, such as bears, mountain lions, coyotes and deer, probably had plenty of time to get out of the fire’s way before it began raging Sunday night.

“Because fire is a natural process, it is probably no big deal for the wildlife,” said Fish & Wildlife Service biologist Cat Brown.

Two rare species that live in Sespe Creek, the California red-legged frog and the two-striped garter snake, may have been slightly affected by the fire, but Brown minimized the impact.

“Unless the whole watershed burned, they will probably do just fine,” she said.

Smaller animals, mice and other rodents are more likely to have been killed, but Brown said many may have burrowed underground and survived.

“Even things like mice sometimes do just fine in fires because they stay underground,” Brown said.

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Diminished numbers of rodents will have one direct impact on those who live near the burn area, fire officials said Tuesday. Hungry rattlesnakes are expected to start slithering out of the burned region and down into backyards.

“People have to be really careful,” said George Leatherman, a captain with the Santa Barbara County Fire Department who spent Tuesday putting out hot spots in the burned area above Grand Avenue. “The snakes are going to be seeking new habitat, and residents should be very, very aware. They’ve got nothing to eat up here.”

The loss of vegetation could pose a problem during the next few rainy seasons, officials said. Jim Carter, a California Department of Forestry watershed expert who arrived from Riverside on Tuesday to study the damage, said the assessment team will start by looking at homes near the burn zone.

“We’re concerned about any houses right below the burned slopes,” Carter said.

The forest service will try to restore the land around the fire breaks, which gouge the landscape. Carter said the team will decide whether some heavily burned places will need to be reseeded to stop erosion.

Carter spent most of Tuesday at the command post, looking up at the ashy white slopes of the mountain and wondering about the damage.

“You just have to be on the ground to see what is what,” he said.

Fillmore resident Trina Nagele was most definitely on the ground seeing what was what Tuesday. She and her husband spent a watchful day patrolling their 160-acre ranch, Colliewood, looking for hot spots. The ranch, a rescue home for dogs--not just collies--was an island of green in a gray landscape. Firefighters had managed to save the entire ranch from the flames, a fact that amazed Nagele.

“The firemen did a miraculous job taking care of it,” she said. “We didn’t even lose any of the doghouses.”

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On Tuesday the couple were without power or telephone lines, but they started bringing back the 50 dogs that had been evacuated. An old oak tree behind their house flared up about noon, sending Nagele on a mad dash down the hill in her truck to find the firefighters.

As she watched firefighters put out a few smoldering areas on the devastated landscape, she said she is worried about how next year’s rains will affect her property.

“I know you have to be scared in the winter because of the erosion,” she said. “But the good part is that Mother Nature has given us a hand in clearing this to protect us from fire for years.”

Nagele’s dogs weren’t the only animals displaced by the fire. Nearly 150 birds had been transported from their aviaries in Steckel Park to the Ventura County Fairgrounds in Ventura, animal control officials said. Authorities were concerned that the birds would either be roasted or burn their lungs from the smoke.

Air quality throughout the County was poor Tuesday, with Ventura and El Rio exceeding state standards for ozone, but pollution experts said the problems had little to do with the smoke that still tinged skies above Fillmore.

Phil Moyal with the Ventura County Air Pollution Control District said the high ozone levels were linked instead to a post-Santa Ana condition in which offshore winds pushed dirty air back over the coastal regions. Moyal said the pollution will probably make its way to Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley today.