Managing the Threat of Brush Fires

* As surely as fall follows summer, the Santa Anas will bring low humidity, high winds and firestorms to Southern California. Just as surely they will be accompanied by death, devastation, floods and mudslides. That is, unless we do far more to prevent the preventable.

Fire is a natural part of Southern California’s ecology. It is essential to heat the seed pods of chaparral so they can burst and continue to propagate on our hillsides. This need not be accomplished by only accidental and chaotic means. A prudent alternative is the systematic, deliberate burning of carefully selected areas, professionally managed, taking into account the need to protect the ecology and human habitation.

Besides requiring brush clearance, fire-resistant building materials and sprinklers, there is far more to be done. The availability of gasoline-powered water pumps for use where there are swimming pools and providing sufficient water pressure throughout threatened areas are also essential.

However, we need to address the most frequent specific, so-called accidental source of ignition for these firestorms. “Triggered by a downed power line” is all too often the refrain. It is well past time to bury these power lines and their power to cause such needless, traumatic disruption to so many lives.

ELLEN STERN HARRIS

Executive Director

Fund for the Environment

Beverly Hills

* Regarding brush fires: Every few years we witness a cycle of nature, but never seem to take any steps to prevent what turns out to be an expensive lesson.

There is an alternative, one that wouldn’t cost much more than, say, one small brush fire. We (the government) take some of the reclaimed and nearly potable water that we now spill down the L.A. River system and pump it up to reservoirs placed strategically in the hills, and from there pump the water to a system of sprinklers placed in a network throughout the hillsides by a legion of men and women who are at the present time unemployed or homeless or a combination of the two. The reservoirs could be made of old 15,000 gallon tanks from old gas delivery tankers, sunk into the hilltops, so the only real expense would be the plastic or metal pipe and the reasonably priced help. The hills could be watered on a rotating basis, all computer controlled.

Think of it! Lush green hillsides all year round! No more mudslides! And if a fire ever did break out, simply turn on all the sprinklers at once and the fire is out! The idea is not as outrageous or formidable as it sounds, and I think it may be worth at least discussing.

ROGER L. EATON

La Palma