By Darren Loo. Sep. 24, 2024
Three wildfires have been ravaging the Southern California mountain ranges this month, burning more than 100,000 acres in total and impacting multiple mountain and foothill communities, including the hometowns of some Cal Poly Pomona students and staff members.
Surrounding the Greater Los Angeles Area is the Bridge Fire in Angeles National Forest, the Line Fire in San Bernardino National Forest and the Airport Fire between Orange and Riverside counties. A heatwave that swept across the region created hot and dry weather, helping the fires grow.
Thousands of people were forced to evacuate due to erratic fire conditions in Wrightwood, parts of Big Bear, Robinson Ranch and many others.
Mechanical engineering student Sean Crowley and his family are residents of Wrightwood, a town with a population of about 4,500 people closely affected by the Bridge Fire.
When Crowley saw that Wrightwood was being evacuated Sept. 10, he was in Pomona, unable to be there with his family, making him feel helpless.
“I heard about the news, I jumped out of class and I just booked it up the freeway to Wrightwood, and by the time I get there, it’s too late,” said Crowly. “The police have already set a barrier, so that no one could get in, and I told them, ‘I live here, here’s my ID, I need to see my mother, I need to pick up my dog so I can evacuate with them to see that they’re safe.’ But they didn’t let me in because they have police ready to do that for me, but it sucks.”
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection has been allocating resources from across the state to the three fires in attempts to keep mountain and foothill communities from being taken by the fires.
Curtis Rhodes, a field battalion chief for Cal Fire, has been working on the front lines of the Line Fire.
“In the initial attack phase, not only do we deploy our resources to combat the fire, but we rapidly transition into a planning phase, taking samples of fuel moisture, working with our weather analysis folks, looking closely at the fire history and how it has burned throughout the region, and from there we start to forecast where these fires tend to transition to and how quick they will get there,” said Rhodes.
Rhodes explained that after the planning phase, fire crews can start heading up to towns where they can create fuel breaks or a strip of land where dry combustible material is removed and start making defensible space around structures, which is a buffer between any highly flammable materials and a structure.
“We see those very quick transitioning fires with high and hot intensity bump into those shaded fuel breaks,and we’ll start to see a lower intensity type of fire,” Rhodes said. “Then we can bring in our aerial assets to start dropping directly on the line, slowing down that forward progress, and then we bring in our troops on the ground and go build containment lines around the fire.”
Aside from affecting people in mountain and foothill communities, these recent fires are heavily affecting wildlife in the areas as well.
Erin Questad, professor and chair of the biological sciences department at Cal Poly Pomona whoresearches post-fire ecosystem restoration, explained the Angeles National Forest is a common fire area, as it is close to civilization. Multiple freeways run along it. Numerous power lines run through the mountain range, and there are established cities in and around the forest.
Although the occasional fire is good for the chaparral ecosystems in the Southern California mountains, fires are happening more frequently than is typical, and their intensity is a cause for concern, according to Questad.
“All of our Southern California ecosystems are somewhat adapted to fire, like even really large trees can withstand a fire that’s not too intense because their bark is so thick, so there are lots of ways that fire is OK,” said Questad. “The problem that’s happening now is that the way the fires are happening is so much different because of climate change.”
Questad also explained that aside from weather, invasive plants are a big contributor to the fuel availability for a fire. The Angeles National Forest is invaded with grasses that grow in the winter and dry out over the summer. With all the factors combined — the hot, dry weather and the extra fuel from invasive plants — fires are burning hotter, bigger and faster than they would have historically. Once the roots of native plants get burnt, they are unable to resprout.
After a fire has passed, there is still high potential for another natural disaster. With nothing holding soil down anymore, mudslides can become a common occurrence when any heavy rain comes. Kenichi Ballew-Haskett, a public information officer assigned to the Bridge Fire, urges residents to be ready for possible future evacuations and to prepare for the possibility of mud and debris flow.
Ballew-Haskett explained the Los Angeles County Office of Emergency Management has already began discussions regarding sandbags, setting up sandbag stations at local and county fire stations and sandbagging areas adjacent to the burn areas. More information regarding mud and debris flow will be available to residents of mountain and foothill communities after the fire is fully contained.
Although the worst of the fires are behind mountain communities now, some, like Crowley just don’t see their hometowns the same way anymore. In Wrightwood, the town was spared from the Bridge Fire, but almost everything to the west of the town is gone.
“There are so many things I grew up with enjoying on the west side of town that are gone, so that will be hard to adjust to I think, going home, seeing that for the first time, charred,” said Crowley. “There’s a really nice viewpoint called Inspiration Point, and that’s gone. But the reason I bring up Inspiration Point is because a lot of our friends would meet there. We would hang out. It was a great place to take photos, and from there is a good reference point of all the good hikes in the area, which is mostly what I did growing up, going on those hikes with friends.”
Community members and firefighters share a mutual gratitude toward each other. Everyone working together is what keeps these communities safe, Rhodes said.
“We tend to start fires year after year, but when we have a fire of this magnitude and we only had one structure that was destroyed, yeah, it’s the firefighting efforts, but more importantly, it’s the community’s effort,” said Rhodes.
According to Rhodes, communities being ready, creating defensible space around their homes and evacuating promptly allowed fire teams to fight fires more aggressively as it approached.
“It’s a fine line of everybody working together for the successes we’ve had so far,” Rhodes said.
Feature image courtesy of Darren Loo