By John Antczak
The Associated Press
LA CANADA FLINTRIDGE, Calif. — A crow as black as the branch it’s perched on oversees a skeleton forest.
Farther along Angeles Crest Highway, a hawk riding updrafts along the San Gabriel Mountains finds only ashen slopes.
These are the rare signs of life in some 250 square miles of the Angeles National Forest in the aftermath of a fire that is finally on the verge of complete containment more than a month after it began.
Vast areas have been left utterly barren or transformed into stick-figure worlds in which remnants of shrubs look like charcoal drawings and once-vibrant green pines have been baked into shades of khaki and dun.
Islands of somehow untouched growth are reminders of how thick the forest had grown over decades, and the sudden sound of a blue jay flitting through a tree emphasizes how quiet it has become without the buzzing of bugs, the chirping of squirrels or the whine of a distant motorcycle accelerating out of a hairpin turn.
Fire commanders hoped to declare the fire fully surrounded Thursday evening. The declaration was repeatedly pushed back in recent days with the onset of the seasonal fall Santa Ana winds — hot and extremely dry gusts that whipped up smoke plumes and fanned a 20-acre spot fire within the forest this week.
The Santa Anas also spread new fires elsewhere in Southern California, including a 25-square-mile blaze in Ventura County agricultural country 40 miles northwest of Los Angeles.
Full containment of the giant Angeles National Forest blaze won’t mean there are no more flames within the burn area, but hotspots should not spread.
Ignited by a still-unsolved arson on Aug. 26, the fire grew to more than 160,500 acres as it threatened foothill suburbs northeast of Los Angeles and indefinitely closed a wilderness backyard for millions.
Two firefighters died, 89 homes burned and a huge amount of forest infrastructure was destroyed.
The fire burned away traffic signs and wooden posts holding up guardrails along forest highways with perilously steep dropoffs. Boulders rolling off bare mountainsides require trucks with plows to constantly patrol to keep roads clear for work crews and repair vehicles.
The California Department of Transportation has already put out $12 million in emergency contracts for urgent work such as replacing guardrails — using metal posts this time.
Road drainage facilities filled with ash and debris need to be cleared and slopes will need to be stabilized so runoff from rains doesn’t close the highways.
“The main problem we see with the roadbed is gonna be slides, because all the vegetation that was holding that mountain material in place is gone,” said Dan Freeman, the Caltrans district maintenance director.
Replacing signs will require review of a 6-year-old photo record and paperwork with any subsequent changes.
Freeman said all the work will take about five weeks, keeping the forest closed to the public until it’s complete.
“We’re not going to open it till it’s safe,” he said. “That’s an absolute.”
Caltrans also has to replace the homes of employees who live more than 5,000 feet up in the mountains and are considered vital to keeping roads open. Three homes burned down and the fourth had heavy smoke damage.
Southern California Edison also has yet to fully tally its costs.
“We have a lot of infrastructure damage,” said spokesman Steve Conroy.
The utility has already identified more than 800 power poles that need to be replaced and the number will probably go up, said spokesman Steve Conroy.
One of the two lines serving Mount Wilson, which is topped by a historic observatory and key broadcast and communications antennas for the Los Angeles region, must be completely replaced.
All of the repairs, which must be done with sensitivity to environmental considerations, may take months.
“There is a lot of work ahead of us,” Conroy said.
The growing public costs are in addition to more than $88 million spent on firefighting. Private losses also include destruction of 26 commercial properties, 94 outbuildings and 132 vehicles. Another 13 homes and 22 commercial properties were damaged.
A Los Angeles County firefighters committee established a fund to aid the families of Capt. Tedmund Hall, 47, and firefighter specialist Arnaldo Quinones, 34, who were killed Aug. 30 when their truck plunged off a mountain road as the wildfire swept toward their post at an inmate fire camp.
Quinones’ widow, Loressa, gave birth to their daughter this week, said Inspector Frederic Stowers.