Planned Burn Clears 1,200 Acres of Brush

Following the age-old example of the Chumash Indians who once inhabited these arid hills by the sea, local firefighters burned 1,200 acres of brush near Aliso Canyon on Tuesday.

The prescribed burn, which began at 7 a.m. and finished by 3 p.m., cleared out brush and chaparral, some of which has been growing on the hill for 50 years. Like the Chumash, firefighters burn the brush for environmental and safety reasons. They also use the controlled fires to train firefighters from all over Southern California.

“Should a wildfire come through--and we have had wildfires come through with a vengeance in the last 90 years--this creates a corridor of safety,” said Sandi Wells, the public information officer for the Ventura County Fire Department.

She emphasized that the burning is a natural process. It is humans who have skewed the natural burning process, which purges the hills of dry brush, releases certain kinds of seeds, and allows space for new green seedlings to push up.

“This gets rid of the old dead stuff,” Wells said.

Firefighters flocked from Los Angeles County and city, as well as from Oxnard and elsewhere to trudge through the hills and hone their skills on the man-induced flames. Bulldozers dug a ring around the edge to ensure the flames did not blow out of control.

Firefighters spend years preparing for a controlled burn. They must pick the right area, the right time, and most critical of all, the right weather. Tuesday was perfect because there was almost no wind at ground level, but up in the atmosphere there was a breeze that blew the smoke out over the ocean.

Traces of the smoke in the atmosphere hung in the air all afternoon.