In today's SB Sun:
Mountain towns ready for new fire threat
ANGELUS OAKS - Halfway through spring, Southern California has already seen several big wildfires - Griffith Park in Los Angeles, Catalina Island, Hesperia, even Little Mountain in San Bernardino.
"This is supposed to be our slow season," said Kenneth Kempter, a U.S. Forest Service Fire Department battalion chief in the San Bernardino National Forest.
A recent fire in Lytle Creek behaved like it was August or September, he said.
San Bernardino on average gets about 16 inches of rain while this season has seen only 3.5 inches.
Throughout the mountains, rainfall totals are running 10 percent to 30 percent of normal, Kempter said.
An unusual string of Santa Ana winds has made for a nearly year-round fire season.
While the dry weather portends a long, dangerous summer and fall, many are optimistic the mountain communities are better prepared than ever for the possibility of fire.
An unprecedented partnership of agencies, communities and the public over the past five years has cleared out huge areas of overgrown forest.
The now seamless cooperation among state, federal and local agencies has allowed tremendous progress to be made since the bark beetle crisis a few years ago, San Bernardino County Fire Marshal Peter Brierty said.
"We're still in high gear," he said.
Mountain residents have also been diligent about cutting back vegetation around their houses, he said. The grass-roots fire safe councils have been key to getting mountain residents prepared.
Under the publicly funded Hazardous Tree Removal Program, residents have until June 30 to have dead, diseased or dying trees marked for removal. After that, it will be the responsibility of the property owner to have the trees cut down.
For information on the program, call (909) 867-1240.
Standing on a helipad up from a U.S. Forest Service road above Angelus Oaks, Randy Striplin, Forest Service fuels technician, and Kempter point out the work that's been done.
Stumps and woody debris lie among live trees now widely spaced. The understory was cut back and younger trees and bushes ground down to make it difficult for fire to move through.
A few years ago, tightly packed trees and a thick understory ran right up to the town, which would have made stopping a fire all but impossible, Kempter said.
With the forest thinner, it'll eventually be possible to do prescribed burns to keep it in good condition.
"Within the next couple of years, we'll come in and burn this stuff on the ground," Striplin said.
The dry weather hasn't allowed for that.
Fire officials worry that the progress in thinning the forest and the success of the evacuation during the 2003 Old Fire will have residents unwilling to leave their homes when the next fire erupts.
The reason more homes weren't lost was because firefighters had free rein on the roads to battle the fire without having to fight traffic or worry about rescuing residents, Brierty said.
"We have got to overcome that reluctance to evacuate. We need those roads," Brierty said. "People say, `We left our homes and nothing happened.' Well, that's a good thing."
