Mt. Wilson Backfires Failed

One of the factors in how Jody Noiron and others decide how to approach a fire in The Angeles is how the efforts will look on TV. When the Station Fire got into the West Fork of the San Gabriel River, the canyon behind Mt Wilson, there was, naturally, great media pressure to protect the summit.

But one of the few places on the forest that received fire clearance in recent years was Mt Wilson. And they kept telling us that this was a terrain-driven fire, not a wind-driven fire. Keep in mind that both sides of Wilson Ridge are extremely steep, and that terrain (i.e. steep slopes) can also act as a natural barrier to fire.

The fire never got onto the front (south) face of the ridge that is covered in Chaparral. The north side is a very different community, with Big-Cone Douglas Fir, Pines, Incense Cedar and Oaks, which burn differently and much more slowly without wind. In fact, the fire didn't attempt to burn there on its own.

However, it makes television reporters nervous - especially when they have a personal interest in the matter - to watch firefighters let a fire take its natural course in open space. Now, because the slope was too steep to cut a fire break, somebody decided to drop incendiary potassium permanganate pellets from aircraft to start backfires that would burn away from Mt Wilson.

Well, because the area didn't want to burn in the first place, all they succeeded in doing was to start hundreds of little spot fires that smoldered for weeks, and are still contributing to Jody's excuse to keep the forest closed. Eventually all the imported hot shot crews that were monitoring the situation went home because it was clear that the slopes behind Mt Wilson were just not going to burn.