Burning Anxieties : Officials Worried About Mudslides Begin Reseeding Plans After Brush Fire

Fearing that winter rains could cause mudslides on Glendale hillsides charred by last week’s 200-acre brush fire, city, county and state officials met this week to plan emergency reseeding efforts.

Glendale Fire Marshal Christopher Gray said the fire destroyed much of the area’s watershed of chaparral bushes and grasses. Gray said that although damage to the watershed could have been much worse, about 15 homes may still be threatened if heavy rains occur in the next few days.

“The predicament is such that we need something that will get hold of the ground quickly,” Gray said after touring the area Friday. “Time is of the essence.”

Aerial Survey

County forestry officials will determine how many acres need to be reseeded after conducting an aerial survey of the area, Gray said. The reseeding will combine hand sowing of rye-grass seed with aerial spraying of a seed-fertilizer mix. Gray said the reseeding will begin no earlier than next week.

Some residents of the hillside community south of Glenoaks Boulevard said they will take their own measures to protect their homes.

“We’re going to try and plant some rye seed ourselves,” said Carole Lindner of Sleepy Hollow Place. Lindner said she feared a mudslide similar to the one that threatened her home when heavy rains followed a brush fire in 1968 and mud “came down like a freight train in our back yard.”

Steve Baumann’s home on Edwards Place sits at the bottom of a long and narrow canyon where most of the native sagebrush and toyon bushes have been burned away, leaving only blackened soil.

“We’ve had close calls before,” said Baumann, 49, as he examined a concrete drain behind his home. “If the drain clogs up, things will start floating in here.”

Assemblyman Pat Nolan (R-Glendale) toured the area with Glendale officials Friday, offering his assistance in seeking state funds for the reseeding effort.

“Sometimes it can take a number of weeks or even months to get this type of effort going,” said Bob Haueter, an administrative assistant to Nolan. The assemblyman has contacted the governor’s office to inquire about emergency relief, Haueter said.

Glendale includes funds for reseeding no more than 15 acres in its annual budget , Deputy City Manager Robert McFall said. “Any help the state can give us will help us to act much quicker than if we had to work with only our own resources,” he said.

Fire Marshal Gray said the cost of the reseeding would vary from $6 an acre for hand sowing to $700 an acre for aerial spraying of a seed-fertilizer mix. The amount of aerial spraying needed will not be known until the county completes its survey of the area, he said.

Danger With Heavy Rain

Gray said the homes in the burned area would be in danger only if a heavy rain falls in the days before the reseeding begins. “We don’t want to alarm people,” Gray said.

“In all of the areas there is enough watershed at the base of the burn zone to contain erosion. It’s going to take a really heavy rain to move any soil.”

Michael Wilkinson of the county Forestry Department toured the fire area with Gray on Monday and said many of the burned plants may survive the fire. “One of the saving factors is that the root systems are intact,” Wilkinson said. “The toyon and the sumac are re-sprouters. They’ll come back.”

Caltrans will begin reseeding

about 70 acres along the Ventura Freeway right of way this week, said Bill Koval, a state Department of Transportation landscape architect. Pump trucks will spray a seed mix onto the blackened hills north of the freeway and Caltrans will also replace the ornamental trees and shrubs that were used to landscape the southern side of the freeway, Koval said.

The grass seed north of the freeway will begin to sprout 2 days after the first rainfall, Koval said. Most of the native bushes and shrubs will grow back in two years, bringing with them the return of the area’s abundant animal life. “The smaller burrowing animals will come back first, then the rabbits within the first year,” he said.

No homes were destroyed in the 200-acre fire last Thursday, and the only damage was to the roofs of four Eagle Rock homes.

Many Glendale and Eagle Rock homeowners said they are eager for the reseeding to begin.

“It needs to be done this week,” said Connie Pierce, 51, whose home on Seeply Hollow Place sits below a steep hillside. “If it rains, I expect to get some sandbags and be prepared.”