Witch fire spares valuable ranch

The wildfire that killed two people and destroyed more than 1,100 homes in north San Diego County last week also roared through Southern California’s last undivided Mexican land grant but apparently did little long-lasting damage.

State officials credited fire-mitigation work by managers of Rancho Guejito for saving Indian archaeological sites and historic structures on the 21,400 acres of steep mountains and broad valleys crisscrossed by streams.

Biologists hired by the ranch’s owner are evaluating the environmental effect the Witch fire had on one of the most ecologically valuable swaths of private land in California.

The buildings, however, were not damaged.

“You can tell the fire blew through there, but it appears to have mostly singed things,” said Hank Rupp, an attorney who represents Rancho Guejito’s owner. “Initially we thought there was more damage, but that wasn’t the case.”

The massive fires of 2003 caused a greater loss of biological habitat, Rupp said.

The damage from the Witch fire was limited by cattle grazing, brush clearing and planning on where fire lines could be dug, said Sarah Gibson, a California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokeswoman.

“They had strategized what would happen because of the long history of fire on the ranch,” she said.

The isolated Rancho Guejito, which few people have seen, has been described as a time capsule to 1845, when California’s Mexican governor awarded the core of it to San Diego’s customs inspector.

Billionaire businessman and international land owner Benjamin Coates owned the ranch for 30 years until his death in 2004.

Coates wanted Rancho Guejito to remain free of development, but rejected offers to sell it for preservation, insisting that it remain under his family’s control.

Since Coates’ death, vague development plans floated by representatives of Coates’ daughter, Theodate, a New York artist who controls her father’s empire, have brought opposition from environmentalists.

mike.anton@latimes.com