Bulldozer Scar
Bulldozer scar follows fire
By: DAVE DOWNEY - Staff Writer
Trail, historic canal 'obliterated' by Poomacha strategy | Tuesday, November 20, 2007 11:30 PM PST
Sandy Puccio, librarian for the Valley Center branch library, and her horse, Dallas, survey a hole created when bulldozers cut a fire line last month at Hellhole Canyon County Open Space Preserve. She is on a damaged trail that followed a historic canal. Photo courtesy of Joaquin Aganza
VALLEY CENTER -- In a side effect from the wildfires that threatens to leave a permanent environmental scar, a bulldozer line cut by firefighters through an open-space preserve knocked out part of a historic canal, a preserve supporter said Tuesday.
Rick Landavazo, president of the Friends of Hellhole Canyon Preserve, said bulldozers covered more than a half mile of the preserve's main trail, which followed the path of the old canal, and cut a deep hole in it.
At one point, Landavazo said, "The trail drops off abruptly. You can fall 40 feet down."
He said the line, about 14 feet or two bulldozers wide, demolished a canal that was built by hand with stones and wood in the late 1800s and once fed water to Escondido and Vista by gravity from Lake Henshaw in the North County backcountry.
"What CalFire did was bulldoze a large section of that canal into oblivion," Landavazo said in a telephone interview. "That's a major loss of history to future generations."
CalFire is short for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, which coordinated much of the assault on the wildfires that ravaged San Diego County and other parts of Southern California last month.
The damaged portion of trail can be fixed, Landavazo said, but not the section of old canal.
Kevin O'Leary, North County division chief for CalFire, agreed that the canal probably can't be repaired, but pledged to do whatever is necessary to restore the preserve to the way it was before the fires.
"We would be happy to meet with them (park supporters and operators) to discuss any issues that haven't been resolved," O'Leary said. "We certainly want to do everything we can to correct the damage."
O'Leary said the line was part of the agency's strategy of fighting the 50,000-acre Poomacha fire and keeping it out of the Paradise Mountain residential area to the south, where the Paradise fire roared through four years earlier.
He said the plan was to cut a line across the preserve, but firefighters did not intend to tear up a preserve trail. He said they did not realize they were on top of a trail until they had followed it for a half mile or so.
"When they saw (trail) signs they stopped," O'Leary said. "But by that time it was too late."
He maintained that, under the circumstances, it is not hard to see how a bulldozer operator might have failed to notice the trail.
"If you're in a dozer and there's smoke all around ... it is very easy for a dozer (operator) to do that," he said.
While lamenting the damage, Landavazo stopped short of placing blame.
"We really think it is unfortunate that this happened," he said. But "I don't want to second guess the judgement of CalFire in an emergency situation."
However, he said, the damage must be repaired.
"We should not take a superficial approach of letting it recover on its own, because it won't," Landavazo said. "This has obliterated the existing trail."
Restoration is also important for preventing potentially severe erosion from winter rains because much of the line was cut into slopes above Hell Creek, he said. And Landavazo said if the line is not replanted, invasive nonnative grasses -- which burn even more often than the native coastal sage scrub -- will take over.
"You can't allow a natural habitat preserve system to degrade," he said.
Michael Beck, San Diego director for the Endangered Habitats League, an environmental group that advocates on behalf of imperiled species, said that while bulldozers may be necessary to fight a fire, care should be taken in choosing where and how they are used.
"San Diego, as most people know, is very biodiverse, and a lot of our species are on the verge of extinction," Beck said. "Most of these plants species are adapted to fire regimes, but they are not adapted to bulldozers."
Eric Bowlby, a staff member for the Sierra Club of San Diego County, said it is crucial that the Valley Center preserve be replanted with native plants.
"The result (of the swath of cleared ground) is that you create a highway for invasive plant species to take over natural habitat," Bowlby said.
The Hellhole Canyon preserve is home to two dozen imperiled species of plants and animals, according to a preserve Web site.
CalFire's O'Leary said he planned to work with the county to come up with a restoration plan for the preserve.
The Hellhole incident isn't the first of its kind. In recent fires, environmentalists have raised similar concerns about the scars that bulldozers have left behind after being used to carve buffers out of the land that might stop advancing flames.
During the 12,000-acre Pechanga fire of 2000, which torched half of the Agua Tibia Wilderness in the Cleveland National Forest southeast of Temecula, conservationists criticized the decision to bring in bulldozers. Federal officials contended the heavy equipment was needed to protect people living on ranches along the San Diego-Riverside county line, while conservationists maintained the line wasn't necessary and would leave a permanent scar on the land.
-- Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (760) 745-6611, Ext. 2623, or ddowney@nctimes.com.