Carbon Canyon Fire Safe Council Brush Drop Off Results

The weather is cooling down, it's cloudy this morning, and there is a chance of showers in the forecast for tomorrow.

But, we know that the fall Santa Ana wind season is coming, raising the threat of wildland fire in the Carbon Canyon area, including the possible shutting down of power by Southern California Edison.

When hot, heavy winds blow, temperatures rise, and humidity plummets, these are the conditions that are most worrisome for a blaze, so these are prime reasons why, every fall, the Carbon Canyon Fire Safe Council hosts a brush drop-off from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. so that residents of the Chino Hills portion of Carbon Canyon can clear their properties of flammable plant material and bring these to the spot on Canon Lane, near Fire Station 4.

Local residents unload brush into a roll-off bin during last weekend's brush drop off service coordinated by the Carbon Canyon with the City of Chino Hills paying for roll-off bins supplied by Chino Hills (Republic) Disposal.

There a trio of Council volunteers assisted in off-loading, piling and packing brush and other matter into a pair of large roll-off bins supplied by Chino Hills (Republic) Disposal, thanks to the support of the City of Chino Hills, which pays for the bins.

It was pretty busy in the early hours of the event and the first bin was filled within 1 1/2 hours.  Normally, a second bin is on stand-by and then brought in at 9:30, but two bins were dropped off, so we were able to move right on to loading the second bin with less delay than normal.

The second bin wasn't quite full, but, by the time 1 p.m. rolled around, there was an estimated 5,000 pounds of plant material dropped off.  This is a modest contribution to reducing flammable material susceptible to burning in a wildland fire, but every little bit helps.

The first and full roll-off bin being taken away and the second being readied.  Roughly 5,000 pounds of flammable plant material was dropped off during the morning.

The next brush drop off will be in late April or thereabouts, so we hope that residents of the Chino Hills side of the Canyon will take advantage of this service and utilize it in the spring.

David Purington Reminiscences of Sleepy Hollow, Part Three

Returning to a series of posts based on typewritten recollections of Sleepy Hollow by David Purington, son of the community's founders Cleve and Elizabeth Purington, here are five pages of his story about the creation and operation of the volunteer fire department, which served the community for several decades.  Thanks again to the neighbors here in Sleepy Hollow who provided the original typescripts.

Purington stated that the fire department started in the late 1940s and was housed in a garage at the back of the Sleepy Hollow Cafe, formerly a store operated by Dave Tidwell.  This is in the area of the parking lot for the Sleepy Hollow Community Center where Rosemary Lane meets Carbon Canyon Road.

David Purington's recollections of the Sleepy Hollow volunteer fire department in five pages.  Click on any image to see them enlarged in a separate window.

The initial crew of five volunteers, later seven, worked out of a garade behind the cafe, and were paid a couple of dollars per call, so that worker's compensation benefits could be obtained, but Purington noted that the money was put into a common fund so that the volunteers and wives could go out to dinner once in a while.

Purington also recorded that some volunteers had hitches on their vehicles so that a trailer, provided by the Chino Fire Department, could be hauled for calls.  Training was provided by the department, which was mostly comprised of volunteers under a paid chief, Art Wagner, who worked for the telephone company, as well.  This situation was, in fact, common for rural areas, remembering that this took place nearly three-quarters of a century ago.

The volunteers met weekly and conducted "dry run" drills, in which the equipment was brought out and hooked up, but no water used.  Purington related one instance in which the trailer became disconnected from the hauling vehicle and a couple of volunteers riding outside on the trailer hung on for dear life as the wayward trailer headed into some brush along the road.

Wanting a better vehicle, but with the Chino department unable to acquire anything in its limited budget, the Sleepy Hollow volunteers acquired a four-wheel drive truck from Army surplus.  The funds for this were raised by having Fireman's Balls, a common fund-raising technique, at the two cocktail lounges in the community (one at the east end where some apartments are today and the other at the former Party House #2 liquor store).

The fundraisers featured floor shows based on hit musicals of the day, like South Pacific and Guys and Dolls with scripts written by Nolan Hyde, secretary of the Sleepy Hollow Water Disrict (several years ago, Hyde's son provided some recollections posted on this blog).  With enough money raised to purchase the vehicle, volunteer Verne Stearns, whose son lives in the Mountain View Estates tract just east of Sleepy Hollow, picked out one.

A pumper unit was also acquired and Purington fabricated and welded a water tank, with both added to the International Harvester truck in Stearns' garage.  The vehicle was then taken to the Chino fire station for additional apparatus installation, including hoses, reels and a siren.

The fire company then moved to a new heaquarters on land owned by the water district once approval was obtained from the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors.  This became the volunteer fire building that stood for many years until the current community building was built in the early 2000s.  As Purington noted, it was decided to make the building large enough so that it could be used "for community meetings, dances, parties, etc." 

The structure, which was completed in 1951, included restrooms, a water heater, a cooking range, refrigerator, hot air furnace, sink and cupboards.  To raise money for the building, more events were held, mainly at the bar at the east side of Sleepy Hollow, the building of which still stands right along Carbon Canyon Road with a two-story house and apartments behind it.  These consisted of dancers, with the owner of the bar providing the space and allowing the department to keep all proceeds.

The volunteers used their skills in construction and contacts in getting deals for materials, including lumber, pipe and cement, and, after about a half a year of weekend work, the building was far enough along to park the truck in it, while more money was raised through community events, including dinners as well as dances, to get the lath and plaster finish done (the restrooms took a little while longer to get completed.) A Women's Auxiliary helped to stock the building with curtains, dishes, cups, silverware and other essentials.  Purington gave particular credit to Jean Stearns, Verne's wife, for her leadership in the auxiliary's work.

A few more volunteers were allowed to join the department and there was even a firehouse dog, Purington's pet Roger.  Purington recalled that there were times that, while he drove from his home to the hall, Roger would take off on his own route and arrive first.

In the late Fifties, the Chino Fire Department provided a Ford truck to the Sleepy Hollow volunteers and the International Harvester was retired.  Purington also related a story of how one of the volunteers played Santa Claus for community holiday events and the fire truck was used as a vehicle to escort St. Nick to the oak grove near the currently shuttered liquor store. 

He ended by noting that the fire house and community building needed some space cleared behind it on the steep hillsides as a park and patio area for events, but also to protect the building from exposure to water and rot.  As noted above, the structure was removed to make way for the current community building, which was designed and engineered for modern standards and codes.

Future Droughts and Effects on Carbon Canyon

A Los Angeles Times front-page article from today by Evan Halper has the headline: "State's droughts may get a whole lot worse."

Advanced modeling research by scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in northern California suggest that:

California could be hit with significantly more dangerous and more frequent droughts in the near future as changes in weather patterns triggered by global warming block rainfall from reaching the state.

This is postulated due to increasing melting sea ice in the Arctic leading to stronger high-pressure systems in the Pacific Ocean causing wet air to move to the north rather than to California.

Estimates are that, within 20 to 30 years, as much as 15% less rainfall could be experienced and, with the last drought wreaking havoc to our agricultural economy and causing major problems in other way, even California, "the state most proactively confronting global warming is not prepared for its fallout."

A study published in Nature Communications observes that the Arctic is going to be ice-free in the summer and the resulting changes in precipiration patterns means that, though the average drop in rainfall would be up to 15%, some years would be considerably less and other more.

Lead scientist Ivana Cvijanovic commented, "the similarities between what will happen and the most recent drought are really striking."  The work of Cvijanovic and her colleagues was federally funded and, as Halper observed,

The findings contrast starkly with Trump administration policy on warming, which ignores the mainstream scientific consensus that human activity is driving it.  The administration has been working aggressively to unravel Obama-era action on climate change, withdrawing from the Paris agreement which seeks to limit its impact, dismantling restrictons on power plant emissions, and signaling it will relax vehicle mileage rules that are a crucial component to addressing global warming.

Other climate scientists note that the latest study is one of several "that have signaled a connection between the ice melt in the Arctic and the building of atmospheric ridges affecting California.  Michael Mann of the Earth Science Center at Pennsylvania State University stated, "the impacts of climate change may exceed our adaptive capacity.  The leaves only mitigation—doing something about climate change—as a viable strategy moving forward."

Stanford's Noah Diffenbaugh noted "the change is dramatic, and it is taking place faster than had been projected by climate models."  He went on to observe that making a concrete connection between ice melt and effects on rain and snow fall in California is a significant milestone.

In fact, Cvijanovich suggested that, if there hadn't been so much melting in recent years, our recent mega-drought might have been avoided, though the model she worked on only addresses future impacts. [Note:  because of a comment raised below, here is the text of the article from which the previous sentence was based: But the atmospheric patterns leading to that drought had all the characteristics of those that can be triggered by Arctic sea ice melt, Cvijanovic said, raising the prospect that California might have dodged the latest drought — or at least not have been hit as hard — if not for the large amount of ice that has already vanished.]

She concluded:

There is lots of research to be done. Hopefully we do it in time to allow people to plan for whatever may be coming.

As for Carbon Canyon, what will be comng, provided the modeling proves prescient, is both longer and drier drought conditions providing more fuels for wildfires, like the latest ones in the last couple of days including the massive Thomas fire in Ventura County that is raging out of control, and flooding and mudslides, worsened by burned slopes, during heavier rainfall years.

Coupled with the recent Times piece on the role of wind in the rapid spread of wildfires, this article is another stark warning for local officials whose responsibility is for jurisdictions like Carbon Canyon and for state and federal leaders more broadly.

The more knowledge we (or, at least, some of us) obtain about climate change, the more pressing the need for mitigation becomes.  This week's high winds and the much higher than average temperatures continue to be an issue with respect to the fire risk in the Canyon, but a Fire Watch staff member was seated this morning in a chair outside his vehicle on eastbound Carbon Canyon Road west of Olinda Village.  This program, funded by The Irvine Company, provided an observer a couple of months ago during the recent firestorms in the Anaheim Hills/Corona area, so it's good, at least, to know someone is literally watching.

Carbon Canyon, Wind and Wildfire Risk

In the wake of October's devastating wild fires in northern California, the Los Angeles Times from last Friday the 24th had this lead headline on its front page: "Fire policies sidestep key factor: wind."

Bettina Boxall's article goes on to discuss a realization made by University of Washington atmospheric scientist Cliff Mass's realization after studying a pair of high-resolution weather models on 8 October when the conflagration broke out: "Oh my God, look at he winds?  What if people were paying attention to this? What could they have done?"

Boxall continued:

As California puts more people and houses on one of the planet's most flammable landscapoes and the grim list of deadly wildfires grows longer, some experts say it's time to take stronger steps.  Among them: Ban development in wind corridors where wild lands repeatedly burn . . .

As Alexandra Syphard, a research scientist with Conservation Biology Institute notes:

In Southern California, every single year the conditions are there for a severe wildfire.  You have Santa Ana wind conditions every year.  You have summer drought every year, high temperatures.

Alex Hall, an atmospheric sciences profesor at UCLA, added:

There are certain corridors where the winds tend to travel.  We also have the ability to predict event by event where the winds are going to be the strongest. 

But with wind mapping and forecasting not shown in the wildfire policies of the State of California, the problem becomes, as Syphard expressed it:

I often hear people say that if we construct our buildings correctly and put enough defensible space around it, then we don't need to worry about where you put the houses.  But they don't necessarily fireproof your house.  You can see that by some of the houses that burned in recent years.

Despite the passage of law five years ago that requires local jurisdictions to include wildfire risk when updating general plans and approving housing projects, Boxall wrote, "there appears little inclination to place especially fire-prone areas off limits to development."

What then followed is a quote from Mitch Glaser, assistant administrator for the regional planning office in Los Angeles County: "we have to consider property rights."  He went to say that, while changes in the layout and size of housing projects are made, no denial of an application was made because of the risk of fire.

Boxall continued: "The building continues even in areas where it is virtually guaranteed that a wind-whipped fire will roar through sooner or later."  She also noted that in France there are new regulations that ban development in hazardous fire zones in the southern part of the country.  A natural resources advisor with the University of California cooperative extension system told Boxall, "it's not terribly popular.  But they do have the ability to make that happen."

This takes the matter then to local jurisdictions and land-use planning.  Richard Halsey, director of the California Chaparral Institute, commented:

Local municipalities are so concerned about their tax base and private property rights and making money that they're not addressing the real risks.

He recommends barring development in high-risk locations or, if it is done, then requiring residents to sign waivers that they forego fire protection, though he followed by stating "I don't know if politically that's ever going to happen."

The article also addressed above-ground power lines and the addition of weather observation stations on poles or requiring that lines be routed underground (which is a significant expense and, in some cases, difficult with terrain).  Shutting off power for public safety reasons was also discussed.

Notably, what San Diego Gas and Electric has found in its monitoring of wind in a county that has been heavily affected by wildfires in recent years is that "it turns out the county's strongest winds don't blow through passes or canyons, as previous thought . . . [and there is] remarkable variability in wind strength across relatively short distances."

In 2014, a new program with that utility, the U.S. Forest Service and UCLA was launched and the Santa Ana Wildfire Threat Index is intended to rank threats based on weather and moisture in vegetation.  At the end of October, "one of the strongest Santa Ana events in years hit Southern California" and the ranking was high, just below the worse of extreme.

For Carbon Canyon, this article has great relevance.  While District 12 of CalTrans on the Orange County side of the canyon put up signs several years ago noting an extreme fire hazard, this designation was not made for the San Bernardino County side by District 8.  A wildfire, however, won't heed the sign difference and stop burning at the county line.

Moreover, while San Diego's experience is that the strongest winds may not be in canyons and passes, that in no way suggest that these areas don't funnel high winds and pose great risks.  They certainly do, as most recently was demonstrated in another pair of destructive Santa Ana Canyon fires in September and October and as the history of wildfires has shown in Carbon Canyon (1929, 1958, 1978, 1990 and 2008 being just the worst of many such conflagrations.)

A United States Geological Survey video "Living with Wildfire," which was the subject of a post here a few years ago, warns of high winds at upper elevations as well as gullies and other natural features serving as funnels for winds up from canyons to those plateaus and ridges on adjacent hills.

Private property rights, property tax revenues and other factors will continue to influence decision-making at the local level, but these will be dwarfed by the financial and human cost of catastrophic wildfires, the intensity and frequency of which are growing.

Our local officials in city and county government and in fire-fighting will continue to face these issues and articles like this as well as the USGS video, in addition to mounting studies of wildfire conditions and causes, will, hopefully, bring more needed attention to a growing problem.

After all, most of the remaining undeveloped land in our region are in our canyons and hills—precisely those areas most in danger of extreme wildfire risk.  The Hillcrest project of 76 units is slowly progressing on the north side of Carbon Canyon just east of Sleepy Hollow and the subdivision is surrounded by wildfire-prone areas with many homes at the ridge top and plateaus where winds are strong, carrying embers well over the defensible spaces put into the project.

Across Carbon Canyon Road, directly south of Hillcrest, the proposed Hidden Oaks, of over 100 units, will soon be heard by the city's planning commission and council.  Again, the project is sited on hillsides, plateaus and ridges with steep topography to Soquel Canyon on the south and Chino Hills State Park (98% of which burned in 2008) beyond that.  Many home sites are, once more, in higher elevation with strong winds.

It is likely that city staff will cite private property rights, future revenue, and improvements in planning for fire as reasons for approving the project, even as our knowledge of the issues with the risk of wildfire grows.  Unfortunately, prospective buyers will not be made aware of that risk and will be lulled into a sense of false security when they move into these new subdivisions.

Carbon Canyon Fire Safe Council Brush Drop-Off Day a Success

Today from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Canon Lane next to Fire Station 64, north of Carbon Canyon Road, there was a steady stream of Carbon Canyon residents from the Chino Hills portion who took advantage of the Carbon Canyon Fire Safe Council's brush drop-off day.

The first bin was set aside and the second one was put into place during today's brush drop-off day.

This program, with the support of the City of Chino Hills and Chino Hills (Republic) Disposal, has been held for the last several years, often in the spring and fall, and allows for local residents to dispose of their brush and help keep the fire risk in the canyon down.

Several Council volunteers were on hand to help with off-loading and piling of the debris into large roll-off bins and there were sometimes three vehicles at a time waiting to drop off the material.

Local residents participating in the drop-off day; in this case, this vehicle made several trips to drop off material.

By mid-morning, the first bin was getting full and, fortunately, the disposal company had another empty one nearby in Chino Hills, so it took just a few minutes to bring it and haul away the first one.

As 1:00 neared, the second bin was just about full and one late arrival had to be turned away as the bin was being hauled out.

With something on the order of 7,500 pounds of brush dropped off, that means that much less of a fire risk in the canyon.

In all, an estimated 7,500 pounds of brush was brought down and then taken away.  With the deadline of the 15th looming for local residents to remove their brush by order the fire department and with the weather being just about perfect, this was the time to get the work done and it was great to see those residents who took advantage of the project.

There may be a fall date for a second brush drop-off day this year, so look for more information here, on the Chronicle Facebook page, on Next Door Sleepy Hollow and on the Chino Hills Connection site.

Fall Brush Drop Off for Chino Hills' Carbon Canyon Residents Saturday!

This Saturday, the 24th, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., residents of the Chino Hills portion of Carbon Canyon, including Sleepy Hollow, Mountain View Estates (Canon Lane), Oak Tree Estates and Downs, Western Hills Oaks, Carriage Hills and Summit Ranch, are encouraged to bring your cut brush to the Carbon Canyon Fire Safe Council's brush drop off location on Canon Lane, north of Carbon Canyon Road, adjacent to Chino Valley Fire District Station 64.

Volunteers from the Council will be on hand to assist with the unloading of material into a roll-off bin, provided courtesy of the City of Chino Hills and Republic (Chino Hills) Disposal.  It definitely helps when the brush is cut to pieces that are easily transferred off vehicles and piled into the bin.

The goal is to reduce as much flammable material as possible from the canyon before the fall Santa Anas, with windy and dry conditions, come along.  However, as we all should know by now, there are no "fire seasons," because the entire year is susceptible to wildfires.  Look at the enormous wildfires that broke out in late spring/early summer.

So, if you have material ready to be cut, or already cut, load them onto your vehicle and head on down to the drop-off site this Saturday from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Help us reduce the risk of wildfire in our ever-sensitive Carbon Canyon!

Fire Threat in Carbon Canyon

As profiled ten days ago in the Los Angeles Times (click here) and reemphasized by the latest massive blaze in the Clear Lake area of northern California, this has been a notable summer for wildfires in California.

To the date of the article, 5 August, 223,600 acres, or some 350 square miles, had burned in 4,000 separate incidents, taking out 300 houses and killing eight persons.

Much of the state is susceptible to wildfires, given the length, severity and reach of the unprecedented drought that has gripped California for several years running.

Some people might be lulled into a false sense of security because of the good rain and snow that fell on parts of the Sierra Nevada Mountains last winter, but much of California received very little precipitation--this includes southern California and our own Carbon Canyon.

The Erskine fire near Lake Isabella in Kern County killed two people and blackened close to 50,000 acres.  The San Gabriel Complex fire in the mountains above Duarte and Monrovia burned over 4,000 acres.  The Soberanes fire in Monterey County scorched about 54,000 acres.  The Sand fire near Santa Clarita claimed almost 40,000 acres.

Then, there are the hundreds of fires that range from under 10,000 acres and lower--in one week, there were 300 separate incidents recorded throughout the state.

Now, southeast of Clear Lake, in an area already hit by three major fires in 2015 alone, the Clayton fire has destroyed 175 structures in 3,000 acres.  The fire doubled in size yesterday alone and is only 5% contained.  Read the latest on that blaze here.

It is telling that, even with all of this activity, the statistics are dwarfed by what happened in 2008, when, by 11 August, there had been around 1.2 million acres burned in wildfires.

This was before the Freeway Complex fire in mid-November raged through much of Carbon Canyon sending a lot of us on a three-night evacuation, during which Sleepy Hollow was a sudden wind shift away from being significantly engulfed.

Plus, since 2010, a staggering 66 million trees have been killed by bark beetle infestations, which are exacerbated by drought conditions and those trees become bone-dry fuels ready-made for wildfires.

But, back to 2016.  There's a long way to go this year.  The fall Santa Ana season awaits.  Our region had another winter of about 4 inches of rain as the drought continues.  This summer has had some hot spells--today registered 106 in Chino Hills at about 4 p.m.  Dry plant material is everywhere.

So, we have to be aware of what is possible here in Carbon Canyon during this last half of the year.  2008 is possible again.

Meanwhile, housing developments in these parched hills, which are most vulnerable to wildfires feeding on those dry fuels and driven by winds at upper elevations, are being built and proposed with the possibility of several hundred new structures added.

There's a reason why CalTrans has placed signs on the Brea side reading "Entering Hazardous Fire Area."

Why the department doesn't have those signs on the Chino Hills side is puzzling.

Why our local, regional and state planners continue to act as if conditions have not changed when they work with housing projects is mind-boggling.

Why we hear so much about the demand for housing as if we had all the water in the world, didn't have the worst smog in almost a decade, had plenty of funds to pay for the infrastructure needed to support the new housing, and so on, is truly mystifying.

Why a proper sense of context and perspective continues to elude leadership when it comes to to development (though intense lobbying, builder-friendly statutes, and an evident weakening of regulatory controls come to mind) is bewildering.

Maybe we'll get lucky and escape without another major fire in Carbon Canyon this year?

Addendum, 16 August, 1:15 p.m.:  Another wildfire, the Bluecut, reaching 1,000 acres in within one hour, has broken out near Cajon Pass at Devore.  6:15 p.m.  The Bluecut fire is now pushing towards Wrightwood and has consumed almost 7,000 acres. 9:15 p.m.  This fire has exploded to some 15,000 acres and there are 82,000 people evacuated in 11 hours.

Carbon Canyon Fire Safe Council Brush Drop Off A Success

Yesterday's Brush Drop Off program, coordinated by the Carbon Canyon Fire Safe Council, went great.

From 8 a.m. until about Noon, a few Council volunteers assisted residents from the Chino Hills portion of the canyon, in unloading and filling a 40-foot long roll-off bin of all kinds of cut material, from brush to tree limbs and other items.

This program is made possible with funding from the City of Chino Hills and the bin dropped off and picked up by Chino Hills Disposal, as well as the coordination of Council chairperson Charlie Blank.

The haul was pretty impressive--somewhere from 7,000 to 8,000 pounds of flammable plant material was removed from the canyon.

With yet another dry winter in our region portending what will almost certainly be a high risk for wildfires this summer and fall, anything we can do to mitigate that risk in the way of brush removal becomes that much more important.

So, thanks to the Carbon Canyon Fire Safe Council, the City of Chino Hills, Chino Hills Disposal, and participating residents for the collaborative effort on reducing wildfire risk in our canyon!

Carbon Canyon FEMA Grant Project Nearing Completion

With funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), an extensive project to remove plant material, thin trees and bushes, and create firebreaks has been coordinated by the Chino Valley Independent Fire District with collaboration from CalFire, the state fire agency.  As the project moves towards its end of November extension deadline, CalFire crews have been working the tough terrain off of East Road in the southwestern corner of Sleepy Hollow, as shown here Monday.

Underway for a couple of years now, an extensive program of brush removal, firebreak creation and other fire mitigation measures, funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), is now approaching completion, just weeks before a final extension expires.

Coordinated by the Chino Valley Independent Fire District, in collaboration with CalFire, the state fire protection agency, and other partners, the mitigation project is within the Chino Hills portion of Carbon Canyon and involves brush clearance, thinning of plants and trees, firebreak creation and other elements.

Crews have worked basically from Carriage Hills to Sleepy Hollow on the south and Sleepy Hollow through Oak Tree Estates on the north and in other areas on the canyon perimeter.  In some cases, workers have battled hot, dry weather, tough plant material, and steep hillside location to do the tough work needed to complete the project.

This photo taken on Monday shows a crew of CalFire workers perched on the steep slopes of the hills above the southwest portion of Sleepy Hollow as they complete the important mitigation project.

Just this week, CalFire crews were in probably the most difficult location of all:  the very steep hillsides in the southwest part of Sleepy Hollow, off East Lane and Rosemary Lane.  The photo here shows the tough terrain these dedicated workers had to deal with this week.

As today's 25-acre plus fire at the Chino Hills entrance to Chino Hills State Park demonstrates, the threat of a major fire is just about always present in our changing environment, considering climate change, drought, continued development encroaching on hazardous wildfire areas, and more.

Consequently, this work represents a vital effort to do what can be done to mitigate the effects of wildfires in Carbon Canyon and also shows just how far fire protection measures have come over the years.  Kudos to everyone involved in this project for doing their best to assist in making Carbon Canyon as protected as possible against wildfire damage.

Tumbling Tumbleweeds' Troubling Transformations in Carbon Canyon

This view off Carbon Canyon Road just west of the S-curve in Chino Hills shows a growing carpet of Russian thistle, better known as tumbleweed, filling the hillside.  A little late Spring rain amidst an ongoing serious drought has brought a proliferation of the highly flammable invasives to our area.

In recent weeks, there has been a significant transformation in the landscape of Carbon Canyon.  From a distance, deceptive green carpets covering bare, brown hills looks like a good thing, but a closer inspection finds something entirely different.

What's been popping up on the Canyon's hillsides and along Carbon Canyon Road are tumbleweeds.  A 24 September article in the Los Angeles Times noted that tumbleweeds, spurred on by a prolonged drought and some late spring rains, have taken over areas usually inhabited by invasives like the wild mustard we typically see covering our local hills.

For this blogger, it's been many years since there has been a proliferation of tumbleweeds as is occurring now.  At the time, the connection to drought was not there, but in the later 1970s, probably 1977 or so, drought drove the tumbleweed population sky-high and it is a vivid memory seeing the uprooted plants rolling down the streets of a Huntington Beach neighborhood.  Several years later, maybe in 1983, a similar phenomenon was observed in the Placentia/Yorba Linda area.

Soon enough, a repeat of those distant recollections will be here.  As the article related, tumbleweeds break off during the autumn and get into drains, ravines, fences, the yards of houses and in other areas.  More concerning:  the itinerant plants become highly flammable and pose a major fire hazard.  In our region, dry as a bone and with vegetation already crispy and containing high fuel content, this added threat makes for a troublesome possibility.

There is a little history in the article, as well.  Known as Russian thistle, the tumbleweed first made its appearance in the United States in the 1870s courtesy of the importation of flax seeds and spread widely and wildly.  Naturally, they flourish during dry spells and are kept in check when rainfall is significant.

Interestingly, there are efforts underway to eradicate the plant by introducing fungi from, of course, Russia. Experiments conducted by the federal Department of Agriculture have been successful enough that the agency is seeking approval from the agency's Animal and Plant Inspection Service to begin treatment.

Meantime, public and private property owners are left with trying to remove existing plants and keep the additional fire hazard down.

To see the Los Angeles Times article in full, click here.

Carbon Canyon Fire Safe Council Brush Drop-Off This Saturday

The Carbon Canyon Fire Safe Council is holding the Fall edition of its brush drop-off program this Saturday, 4 October from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. next to Fire Station 64 on Canon Lane and Carbon Canyon Road.

Council volunteers will be there to assist residents of the Chino Hills portion of Carbon Canyon only who want to bring brush and other vegetation removed from their properties and leave them in a roll-off bin provided by the City of Chino Hills in collaboration with Chino Hills Disposal.

With hot, dry Santa Ana conditions coming in this weekend, this is an important time to get that removed brush off property and disposed of and this program gives residents a boost in that direction.

Again, this program only applies to Chino Hills residents within Carbon Canyon, so if this fits the bill for you, bring down that cut vegetation this Saturday!

Brea Fire Station #4 Grand Opening

On Saturday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., a grand opening celebration was held for the grand opening of the revamped Station 4 of the Brea Fire Department in Olinda Village. 

From a very rudimentary outpost of long standing at the shopping center just off Carbon Canyon Road has developed a portable structure and a steel station house, as well as a container for the CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) organization.

After the obligatory speeches by fire officials and city leaders, visitors toured the facility, enjoyed a barbeque lunch and ice cream, and visited booths for the department, the CERT group and the Carbon Canyon Fire Safe Council.

At about noon, there were probably seventy-five or more persons at the event, though after 1 p.m. the crowd thinned considerably.  Overall, the event seems to have gone very smoothly.

There was some controversy, however, about the extent to which the facility was considered accessible as required by ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) standards, especially regarding the portable building.  City staff determined that, because the building was not considered a fully public one, it did not need to meet those standards.  The station house can be used for public events, but accessible restrooms would only be available through rented porta-potties, rather than the constructed restrooms in the building.

Still, the presence of a better station, with more personnel and better equipment, as well as the remarkably well-equipped CERT container, which reflects the superior organizational skills of the folks who volunteer to serve (and city staff) in Brea, is an important part of the enhanced fire protection presence for Carbon Canyon.