Crews Mop Up Foothills Fire; Cause Probed

With the blaze that burned 5,330 acres this week extinguished, a skeleton crew of firefighters Thursday looked for hot spots, while arson investigators searched the recycling business where the fire started to determine who was burning the copper wire that set off the blaze.

About 170 firefighters searched the fire area, some in a helicopter using an infrared viewer to pick out hot spots. Ground crews used pick axes, shovels, a small fire engine and pickups armed with small water pumps to extinguish embers that could cause a resurgence of the blaze. The crew will remain at work through this morning, said Scott Brown, Orange County Fire Authority spokesman.

The fire, which drew more than 1,200 firefighters at its height, has cost more than $1.1 million to fight, said Herb Jewell, chief of the wild land fire defense section of the Fire Authority.

Arson investigators have not cited anyone in connection with the fire, but continued to inspect the property of Dan Dulac to determine whether anyone should be cited for negligence. Dulac runs a recycling business on his 100-acre ranch at Baker Canyon and Black Star Canyon roads, where the fire began.

As the firefighters’ job approached its end, environmentalists were walking the blackened hills and canyons of eastern Orange County to determine the fire’s effects on precious wilderness areas where rare birds and butterflies lived.

Countless deer, mountain lion, foxes and threatened species like the California gnatcatcher live in the area.

Biologists said it is too early to know whether the burned area, which includes portions of the new and much-touted Nature Reserve of Orange County, would come quickly back to life. But they said they were hopeful the fire had left the wildlife area unharmed. Some plant species in the area could be better off than before the blaze, which killed off vast areas of old growth and may allow new growth to arise.

Early estimates suggest 500 to 1,200 acres burned in the reserve’s 20,000-acre central area, including the upper part of Hicks Canyon, said Trish Smith of the California Nature Conservancy, an advisor for the reserve.

The fire also burned a large expanse of Irvine Co. land, known as the North Ranch Policy Plan area, which environmentalists have fought to add to the reserve. The area is the last known spot in the county where the Quino checkerspot butterfly appeared.

That sighting took place 30 years ago, and no recent extensive surveys have been conducted to determine if the butterfly still lives in the county, said Rudi Mattoni, a butterfly conservation expert who studies the Quino.

A light, fast fire might not harm the Quino--and may even help it by opening up space for the plants it feeds on--but a hot fire would incinerate larvae, Mattoni said.

The once-common Quino was added this year to the federal list of endangered species.

“It’s very likely that the majority of the area that burned will respond very well. It’s likely to be a very good thing, with many of the plants and animals responding vigorously,” said Robin Wills, fire program manager for the California Nature Conservancy, a nonprofit that aims to protect wild lands. “But we sort of reserve our judgment on whether or not the fire was ecologically sound, depending on what happens over the next couple of years.”

Wills said that since the burned zone lies next to other wild land areas, animal stocks in the area stand a good chance of quickly regenerating. The adjacent lands gave species a place to escape, Wills said. In contrast, the 1993 Laguna Beach fire occurred in the midst of developed land, giving animals no safety hatch, he said.

But the coastal sage shrub that had been abundant in the scorched Baker Canyon area may not fare as well, Wills said.

While a fire every five to 20 years allows a new generation of plants to arise, in recent years more fires have hit the Southland, making it difficult for local plant stocks to regain their numbers before they are wiped out again, he said.

Coastal sage shrub has been hit particularly hard.

“Plants don’t have enough time to complete their life cycles, to regenerate, to grow mature, to produce flowers and seeds and then respond to the next fire,” Wills said.

That is changing the landscape.

“What’s happening in Southern California is that many of the places that were historically coastal sage shrub are being converted to grasslands, dominated by non-native or introduced grass species,” Wills said.

The fire’s full impact on the Irvine Co., the county’s largest landholder, will not be known until the company takes aerial photographs and studies them, said company spokesman Paul Kranhold. An exact tally of acres burned was not available Wednesday. Some burned land near Orange was earmarked for future Irvine Co. development, and those plans probably will not be changed, Kranhold said.

As firefighters mopped up Thursday, wind speeds dipped to their slowest since Santa Anas helped fan the flames when it started Monday night, although temperatures remained unseasonably hot and dry.

“We don’t anticipate the return of those high winds,” Brown said. “Conditions are still hazardous, although not as extreme as the other day when this fire started with the high winds.”

The helicopter searching for hot spots was fitted with an infrared device developed for military use that picks up heat, said Huntington Beach Police Lt. Luis Ochoa.

“Normally the chopper picks out body images such as the bad guys,” Ochoa said, whose department loaned the helicopter to the fire authorities. “But it’s also useful to help locate lost or missing children especially in a large area like a park, beach or something like that.”

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Danger Compounded

The Baker Canyon fire burned more than 5,300 acres, some of it inhabited by endangered species. One such insect, added to the federal endangered species list this year, is the Quino checkerspot butterfly. Once abundant in Orange County, there are now only seven populations in the U.S., some with as few as five individuals.

Quino Checkerspot

Biological name: Euphydryas editha quino

Habitat: Chaparral, coastal sage scrub and grasslands

Description: Checkered pattern of dark brown, reddish and yellow spots

Active period: Mid-January to late April

Life span: Only four to eight weeks, but can take up to eight months to develop from larva

Why endangered: About 50% to 70% of range destroyed by development, agriculture and invasion of non-native plants

Other endangered species affected by the fire:

* California gnatcatcher

* Least Bell’s vireo

* Gray vireo

* Arroyo toad

Source: U.S. Forest Service

Researched by MIMI KO CRUZ / For The Times