Long Recovery In Store For Scorched Calif. Hillsides

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RENEE MONTAGNE, host:

This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Steve Inskeep is in Houston on assignment. I'm Renee Montagne. The latest wildfire here in Los Angeles County is also the biggest one in the county's history. It's on the verge of being fully contained, but the cost of fighting that blaze is now expected to exceed $100 million. The fire has taken a huge toll on the Angeles National Forest. As NPR's Carrie Kahn reports, some worry the damage won't end when the flames are out.

CARRIE KAHN: To local hikers, Bob Cates(ph) is known as 100-peaker. The 63-year-old retired engineer has reached the top of almost every Southern California mountain on the Sierra Club's list of peaks over 5,000 feet.

Mr. BOB CATES (Hiker): There are probably about 60 or 70 peaks of that 100 peaks list within the San Gabriels. So…

KAHN: You've climbed them all.

Mr. CATES: I've climbed practically all of them.

KAHN: Cates has taken me to one of his favorite lookout points in these rugged mountains of the Angeles National Forest. It's called Switzer's Camp, but you'd miss the turn-off if you didn't know where it was. The sign to the camp burned to the ground. All the hillsides are barren and ash-covered with a few charred skeletons of the once towering big spruce pines.

Cates has seen this before nearly 40 years ago, when another wildfire raced across this very spot. The forest came back then, but not without assistance from Cates and other volunteers.

Mr. CATES: I helped plant these trees, along with other members of the Sierra Club, in the early '70s. We did it in the spring - at the end of the spring. And it was going to be followed by one of the blistering hot summers.

KAHN: So for the next few months, once a week Cates and another friend would drive up the mountain highway with five gallon jugs of water and drench the two-feet tall saplings. He says he and countless other volunteers are ready to do it all again.

No doubt some 14 million people live within a two hour drive of this mountainous playground towering above L.A., many with equally long-held connections, says U.S. Forest Service supervisor Jody Noiron.

Ms. JODY NOIRON (Supervisor, U.S. Forest Service): Very heartwarming. I've had lots of contacts from corporations, entities, organizations that are very anxious to help us.

KAHN: But Noiron says it's too early to let anyone back into the national forest. First off, the fire is still burning in some areas and the forest service is still trying to determine where mudslides will occur once the winter rainy season begins.

Ms. NOIRON: The concern is, is that if the heavy rains do hit, then there could be floods, mud, that type of thing happening in not just one community but in all of the communities at the same time that sit at the base of this mountain range.

KAHN: There are some 35 cities and communities at the foot of the forest. And while mudslides will be a concern for millions of those residents, scientists around L.A. are also worried about the city's water supply. Runoff from the San Gabriel Mountains accounts for nearly a third of the Los Angeles basin's water supply. With no vegetation on the mountain slopes, mud, debris and some toxic chemicals could contaminate L.A.'s water.

Terri Hogue is an environmental engineer at UCLA. She's long studied water contamination after fires, but says she's never seen a fire this big and so close to the water supply of such a large population.

Ms. TERRI HOGUE (Environmental engineer, UCLA): As these fires move around the edges of these big urban areas, it's going to be a concern. These fires will not only impact houses and people, they're going to impact resources.

KAHN: It will be months before the damage to the city's water system can be calculated. In the meantime, avid hikers like Bob Cates are still mourning their losses. Cates says he's anxious to get back out to the forest and take part in its rebirth.

Mr. CATES: We know the mountains will recover. And we know that fire is both a source of creation as well as destruction. And we - we are confident that the forest will rise again.

KAHN: But not for decades. The landscape is cooked for as far as you can see. And it will easily take years for the few green patches to spread along the peaks and valleys of the Angeles National Forest.

Carrie Kahn, NPR News.

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