She came back to the now closed Eaton Canyon Natural Area Park in Altadena last weekend for the first time, months after the devastating fire.
Diane, who declined to give her last name, wedged her phone between the locked gates to snap a picture, a remembrance, perhaps, of a special place she used to visit to enjoy moments of solace. As an artist, she would set her easel amidst the park’s iconic sycamores and oaks or adjacent to the nature center building and let the scenery move through her brush strokes onto the canvas, she said.
“I would come in here for painting,” she said. “I painted landscapes.”
It took about 90 minutes for the fire to sweep through the rustic canyon in eastern Altadena, adjacent to Pasadena, on the evening of Jan. 7. The winds, moving at 62 mph, pushed flames up the canyon and then westerly, where the Easton fire, named for the canyon where it started, destroyed 9,414 structures, most of Altadena and taking 17 lives.
While clearing of debris gets underway at some of the burned out homes, businesses, schools and churches, the extremely popular nature park in eastern Altadena has not been touched much by human hands, except for the fencing and padlocks that keep people like Diane out.
Fire and rain
Mother Nature, on the other hand, has been as active as a runaway freight train. Some has been good but the rest, damaging. The full picture — still emerging — will take time, keeping the park closed for at least two years, county officials estimate.
The flames burned the grasses and chaparral that held together the trail that leads to the Angeles National Forest and a waterfall. Winter rain events washed out huge portions of the trails and walkways.
“It will be a Herculean effort to restore the trails,” said L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, whose district includes Altadena.
While fires occurring about every 30 years are mostly beneficial to the canyon, flooding is not. A Feb. 13 massive storm surge doubled the size of the streambeds, with flowing sediment from the burn scars turning sycamores into floating logs. “It looks shocking,” said Cristhian Mace, L.A. County Department of Parks and Recreation natural biologist.
Without plants holding down the earth, the sediment moved quickly in February and again on March 13, when more mudslides ravaged the wilderness park, damaging the trails and destabilizing slopes, Mace said.
With more storms expected next month, Mace worries that additional sediment will act as a powerful, damaging force. “The constant changing of this landscape makes it unsafe,” she said on Monday, March 24. “This place will need time.”
The good news?
About 90% of the trees remain, a testament to their fire resilience, reported Mace.
“I started crying because I was so relieved about how much was still there,” she said. “We are looking at a high survival rate of trees,” she added, mentioning the oak tree’s thick bark and waxy leaves that prevent embers from penetrating.
Fire flowers
Since the fire, the park’s micro ecosystems have shown new life. Bushes are re-sprouting. White and purple Acourtia microcephala flowers are emerging, one of a group of plants that include pale purple phacelia known collectively as fire followers, noted Gabi McClean, president of the San Gabriel Mountains Chapter of the California Native Plant Society.
“Focusing on the environment is where the hope is,” she said on March 24.
In surveys conducted with biologists from academia, Mace said tree buds were awakened by the heat. “The fire caused them to leaf out like crazy,” she said, noting that the lower coastal sage scrub is also sending out green shoots.
Other plant species that thrive following a fire, what scientists call successionists, include California sagebrush, bush sunflower, laurel sumac and even poison oak — all seen thriving in the park very recently, Mace said.
A classic fire follower, Matilija poppies, shoot up eight feet tall, with white paper-like flowers surrounding yellow centers, resembling a sunny side up egg. Mace has seen them near the park’s entrance, trailing a sloping log.
“They are gorgeous and they grow tall and quickly,” she said. “I have seen their leaves shooting up out of the burn scar.”
Losing a wilderness entré
The park is uniquely situated in a canyon that begins at Eaton Saddle, near Mount Markham and San Gabriel Peak in the San Gabriel Mountains. The entrance, at 1750 N. Altadena Drive among a string of tract homes, straddles neighborhoods in Altadena and Pasadena, making it one of the most accessible wilderness parks in the region.
Lost was the easiest hike to a waterfall in Southern California, including inside the Angeles National Forest. Some called it the best access to the 700,000-acre forest that forms “L.A.’s backyard.” The visitors packed the trail every weekend, often filling the parking lot by 8 a.m.
“We know we can do it. We’ve done it before and we will do it again. This nature center is too important.” – L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger
The Eaton Canyon Nature Center — a 7,600-square-foot park centerpiece — also was destroyed in the fire. It was a place that hosted programs on bears, climate change and snakes put on by the Sierra Club Angeles Chapter’s Forest Committee for more than 15 years. Others who used the center for educating young people about caring for the wilderness or training wilderness guides included Nature For All and the California Native Plant Society.
“This place doesn’t require any mountain driving. Getting to the waterfall doesn’t require that much strain on the body,” said Edgar McGregor, 24, a park aide at the Nature Center for the last three years.
Hence, the park was a place not really for hikers, but for families and youth who had never experienced nature before, he said.
“It was an introductory spot for young people, for low-income and disadvantaged communities,” he said.
“I found it remarkable that we have a metropolis that ends and then you take five steps and you are in nature. I always appreciated that about our area,” he added.
This passive park is one where people could walk among oaks and sycamores and gaze up into the majestic mountains, spending a few hours away from the stresses of urban life.
“It was a place where multi-generations would come together for an afternoon walk. It’s where you don’t have to spend any money. These places are few and far between in our modern age.” said Daniel Rossman, executive director of the One Arroyo Foundation, a nonprofit working to protect and preserve the Arroyo Seco in Pasadena.
Visitors at Eaton Canyon park would hike the trail, passing by hidden animals, such as snakes, birds, reptiles, bears, skunks, bats, raccoons, mule deer, opossums, coyotes, bobcats and mountain lions.
Inside the Nature Center were educational exhibits, art work, books, gifts and live animal displays. Most of the “animal ambassadors” died in the fire, with one exception, said McGregor.
Two desert tortoises, Clyde and Clementine, survived. They were at a volunteer’s house away from the fire for their hibernation time, he said. Clyde is 60 years old and Clementine between 65 and 70, he said.
Can Nature Center be rebuilt?
This isn’t the first time the nature center burned down. The previous building was destroyed in the 1993 Kinneloa fire on Oct. 27, 1993. The center was rebuilt and reopened in 1998.
Barger said the county Department of Parks and Recreation are designing a new nature center. She said rebuilding the nature center would take three to four years.
“We know we can do it. We’ve done it before and we will do it again,” Barger said. “This nature center is too important.”
Mace said plans would include a more fire-resistant building. Also, the location may be changed to better protect the center from the next wildfire.
“It may not necessarily be in the same location,” she said.
Many said the nature center was a building that played a key role in the park, and also blended in well with the natural surroundings. Barger said the county will incorporate lessons learned from the Eaton fire in the rebuild.
“Yeah, it was a beautiful building,” said Diane, one of many artists who painted in the park. “I’m hoping they can rebuild it.”