Brush-clearing campaign under way near De Luz

By: TOM PFINGSTEN - Staff Writer | Thursday, September 13, 2007 12:34 AM PDT ∞

FALLBROOK -- Fire prevention officials at a small gathering Wednesday morning debuted their latest effort to establish fire buffers around homes and roads in Fallbrook's rural outlying areas by cutting down dry, flammable brush.

Overlooking the canyon where the Gavilan fire began in February 2002, officials said they have raised $85,000 in grants to pay a contractor to clear brush within 30 feet of many access roads in the Santa Margarita River Valley, and from within 100 feet of structures.

Just over the hill on Wednesday, firefighters were busy mopping up after the Colina fire that ignited near Temecula on Monday afternoon and burned 430 acres.

Dorothy Roth, president of the Fallbrook Fire Safe Council, said the U.S. Bureau of Land Management gave the council a $75,000 grant and the county contributed $10,000 for the current work, which will continue for the next several months.

"We should be able to provide a very nice buffer zone, which, if a fire starts, it would be a place where the fire would slow down enough to be stopped and prevented from continuing on into town," Roth said.

"If a fire is burning and reaches a place that burned a few years earlier, it slows down," she added. "If it just keeps raging through areas that have not burned in a long time, then you have a conflagration."

Roth said that a study performed nearly five years ago by fire safety consultants with the Solvang-based Hunt Research Corp. determined that the dry brush and windy conditions in De Luz pose the greatest fire threat to the more heavily populated areas of Fallbrook.

More than 700 firefighters responded to the Colina fire this week, according to the Riverside County Fire Department, which also reported that the fire was 100 percent contained by Wednesday morning.

Much of the land in that undeveloped region northeast of downtown Fallbrook has not suffered a wildfire in six or seven decades, she pointed out.

"This area has the oldest brush in this region, and any brush 60 years old or more is almost impossible to fight when it catches fire," Roth said.

Sid Morel, fire marshal for the North County Fire Protection District, confirmed that recent studies have proven that old growth is more difficult to extinguish once it catches fire.

"Once that fuel reaches about 50 years, it's like gasoline, it's so volatile," Morel said, motioning toward the hillsides above the Santa Margarita River that are covered with brush that has not burned in recent memory.

"We wanted to make sure we have a fire break along the Santa Margarita River Valley for the residents of Fallbrook," Morel said. "It just makes sense, because it's the worst threat to the largest number of people."

While officials and a few local residents mingled after Wednesday's meeting, which took place at the end of Macadamia Drive, a small tractor with a mowing attachment on the front demonstrated how the brush will be cleared without destroying root systems that hold soil in place.

Morel said having the buffer zones around houses help lower the chances of destruction, while having them around roads helps slow the spread of fires and provides firefighters safer access in the event of a wildfire.

Contact staff writer Tom Pfingsten at (760) 740-3516 or tpfingsten@nctimes.com.

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