Smoldering blame

A cloud of blame and controversy has risen from the ashes of the destructive and deadly Station Fire that for two weeks relentlessly cut a charred swath through the Angeles National Forest, growing into the largest catastrophe in the forest’s history.

Fingers now point to arson as the cause, fueling suspicion over who set the blaze that quickly claimed two lives, injured 10 and ravaged nearly 80 homes after it ignited about five miles north of La Cañada Flintridge on Aug. 26. The Station Fire had burned more than 160,000 acres as of Tuesday, but 4,800 firefighters battling it had it 60 percent contained. Firefighters were gaining the upper hand Tuesday following a barrage of aerial water drops from a fleet of helitankers and aircraft as ground crews set aggressive backfires and chopped fire breaks through the forbidding mountain terrain above Pasadena, Sierra Madre, Arcadia and Monrovia.

Airdrops and strategic backfires also helped firefighters protect the historic Mount Wilson Observatory complex, home to an array of television, radio and communications antennas. Officials predict the fire, which had cost an estimated $57 million to fight as of Tuesday, will be fully contained by Tuesday.

Since the Station Fire started, questions have intensified in the debate over strategies to manage hazardous brush and respond to the perennial forest fire threat.

The US Forest Service halted controlled burns in the federal forest areas it manages despite having permission to burn more than 1,000 acres of now-scorched forestland.

Earlier this year, the South Coast Air Quality Management District issued the Forest Service six permits to burn out hazardous brush from 1,700 acres. Four of the permits were for areas torched in the Station Fire. But Forest Service officials reported burning out a mere 13 acres, said Sam Atwood, spokesman for the AQMD.

Forest Service officials say they burned what they could until heat, winds and humidity conspired against their efforts to safely burn away brush, some of which hasn’t burned in about 40 years. But controlled burns are just one of a half-dozen methods the agency uses to remove hazardous vegetation, Forest Service spokesman Stanton Florea said.

Crews from the agency also cleared more than 5,000 acres of tinder-dry forest brush by hand this year until funding ran out, Florea said.
County Supervisor Michael Antonovich was quick to blame environmentalists for impeding controlled burns that arguably might have helped contain the fire in some areas.

“This brush was ready to explode,” Antonovich told the Associated Press late last week. “The environmentalists have gone to the extreme to prevent controlled burns, and as a result we have this catastrophe today.”

But Antonovich’s ire seems to be misdirected. A number of environmental groups say they support controlled burns, and some call for more funding for hazardous fuel removal. Moreover, no public comment or protest is included in the administrative process AQMD follows for grant burn permits, so groups for or against controlled burns did not have a say in the issue, said AQMD’s Atwood.

One of the area’s largest environmental groups, the Angeles Chapter of the Sierra Club, has no qualms over controlled burns.

“As far as I’m aware, environmentalists haven’t played a role in that,” said Don Bremner, a Pasadena resident who chairs the chapter’s forest committee. “We generally support the kinds of burns they talk about, which are well-controlled, well-managed burns.”

Antonovich’s spokesman, Tony Bell, said this week that the supervisor was referring to environmentalists influencing federal forest management policies to the point they value the forest over protecting life and property. Some federal forest policies protecting unique species keep the county from bulldozing fire breaks, Bell said.

The fire underscored a number of jurisdictional issues the county and federal government face in managing forest wildfires, Bell said.
“Every time we have a situation like this there is something to be learned,” he said.

Another organization, The Wilderness Society, is calling for more funding for forest management and is supporting California’s Democratic US Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s effort to boost federal funding for fuel reduction.

In recent years, federal policy has shifted the focus of the Forest Service’s $5 billion budget from preventing fires to fighting them when they spark up.

The most recent change came when former President George W. Bush transferred millions of dollars in fire prevention funds to fire suppression efforts in his 2009 budget, cutting the Forest Service’s fire prevention funds 4 percent to $297 million, while boosting firefighting funding by $137 million to $1.1 billion. Firefighting budgets are set based on the past decade’s average cost of fighting forest fires, which has risen threefold during the 10-year drought gripping the Southwest. Bush also trimmed 600 jobs, a 5 percent cut, from the agency’s ranks.

Money for fire prevention is set to decrease again in President Barack Obama’s proposed 2010 budget. Fire suppression funds would increase 14 percent, but wildland fire management funding will be falling, including hazardous fuel removal, which would be cut 4 percent, and forest health management, slashed 29 percent. Congress is supposed to act on Obama’s spending plan by the end of the month.

The fire investigation abruptly shifted to a manhunt last week as the Sheriff Department’s homicide and arson units began searching for an arson suspect now blamed in the deaths of LA County firefighters Arnaldo “Arnie” Quinones, 34, of Palmdale, and Tedmund “Ted” Hall, 47. The pair died Aug. 30 after their vehicle plunged 800 feet off the side of a forest road as they tried to escape fast-moving flames near Mount Gleason. A memorial for the fallen firefighters is set for 10 a.m. Saturday at Dodger Stadium.

Antonovich, whose district includes the burn area, is offering a $50,000 reward for tips leading to conviction of anyone responsible for setting the fire. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s office is offering a $100,000 reward.

A multiagency team of investigators last Thursday determined the inferno was the work of an arsonist after sifting through ashes at the side of the road near mile marker 29 on Angeles Crest Highway, about five miles north of La Cañada Flintridge. Officials refused to divulge what evidence of arson they uncovered, saying it would compromise their inquiry.

Questions linger about the county’s response to the fire and how it will handle clean-up efforts.

LA County supervisors have called for an analysis of the county’s emergency notification system after errant evacuation phone calls mistakenly sent an unknown number of La Crescenta residents scrambling for shelters at 2 a.m. on Aug. 31. A report on what went wrong with the brand-new “AlertLA” mass emergency notification system is due next week. The county purchased the $2 million “AlertLA” system in mid-June. Supervisors billed it as a surefire way to target messages to areas affected by emergencies.

The supervisors also ordered an assessment of watersheds in the burn area and immediate action to stave off the inundating mudflows and devastating floods almost sure to come gushing from the charred, barren hillsides in the next substantial rain.

The Station Fire rapidly became the largest destructive blaze in the area’s recent history, eclipsing 1919’s Ravenna Fire, which burned 75,000 acres in areas now scarred by the Station Fire, said Florea of the Forest Service.

Residents and firefighters in its path were fortunate the fire did not break out any later this year, as the expected Santa Ana winds would only have intensified its fury.

“I don’t think people appreciate how bad this could have been,” said  JPL climatologist Bill Patzert. “Definitely, this is a lesson on preparation.”