O.C. Agency Fights Fire With Fire

Flames licked at the tinder-dry weeds, then burst into a crackling run up the rolling back country of Crystal Cove State Park. Firefighters, some armed with lit torches, stood watching as the fire began.

The scene Tuesday was part of a controlled, deliberate burn across 48 acres of the 2,200-acre state park undertaken with a dual purpose: to try to eliminate fast-spreading exotic plants and to prevent large, uncontrollable blazes as wildfire season begins.

“If someone had told me 30 years ago that I’d be out lighting fires, I’d have told them they were crazy,” said Orange County Fire Authority Battalion Chief Matt Vadala, who had his eyes, ears and even the back of his neck on alert to catch shifting breezes or other potential trouble. “But right now there’s enough history from environmentalists and biologists to show it actually does work.”

Below him on the slope, clumps of once-purple artichoke thistle and choking stands of mustard weed caught fire slowly. Both are among the dozens of invasive plants upsetting the balance of nature in California, squeezing out native plants like coastal sage, prickly pear and others that provide refuge for endangered birds, butterflies and other animals.

“They’re pretty, but they just take over everything,” said state parks ranger Robin Harding. “The only alternative to this is to put out lots of poison, which we don’t want to do.”

Because native grasses and shrubs are fire-adapted, and may actually germinate at a higher rate after occasional blazes, scientists said Tuesday’s burn could help.

Most of the acreage in this steeply cut, upland part of the state park was ravaged by wildfire whipped by winds in 1993. By doing controlled burns, officials also hope to eliminate dry “understory” plants that could feed a wildfire.

Tuesday’s burn--part of a regular program in the state parks--began shortly before 10:30 a.m. with crews dressed head-to-toe in yellow fire-retardant gear spreading out across the Bowl section of the park armed with blazing “drip torches.” The torches are 3-gallon, hand-held metal gas tanks with long snouts that emit a thin, steady flame. Again and again, they touched the flame to the dry ground.

The last campers had cleared out an hour earlier, replaced by 89 firefighters, state park and electric company personnel, a Nature Conservancy staffer to count any possible snake casualties, and two inmate work crews armed with pick axes and a chain saw to instantly clear zones to hold back fire if necessary.

Perimeter grasses had been mowed, and bulky fire and water trucks maneuvered up a winding dirt trail. A thick water hose snaked around the fire’s edge, at the ready.

Though the fire spread slowly at first, by 2:15 p.m., the site had been largely cleared of unwanted plants. The fires set around the edges had met in the middle in one huge column of smoke and flame, then burned out, exactly as planned.

“We poke a big hole in the sky with the column of fire, and get that smoke way up high, away from anyone down wind,” said state park ecologist David Pryor.

By late afternoon, all that was left was a charred, slightly smoldering hillside. The black soot and caked ash provides nitrogen and other fertilizers, and new growth should start “within a matter of several weeks,” said Harding.