Coastal residents are on edge as a large fire grows in the Point Reyes National Seashore, threatening homes, reshaping wilderness and saturating the sky with smoke.
Firefighters are fully engaged on the front lines to contain the blaze, which has burned nearly 3,000 acres of parkland and jumped over at least three control lines. The fight is challenged by the varied climate created by the Pacific Ocean and the Inverness Ridge, and a reluctance by the park service to use heavy equipment in the wilderness. On fortunate days, the fog rolls in and calms the fire, while on scarier days, onshore breezes follow the contours of the land, sending embers into the air that can fall a half-mile from the burn zone.
Monday was one of those scary days for the Woodward Fire. The wind pushed the flames east toward Bear Valley Road, within 100 yards of the visitor center. Firefighters worked quickly to put out spot fires, but a few established themselves and created thick clouds of smoke. The increased activity prompted an evacuation order for 90 homes on Noren Lane, Fox Drive and Silver Hills Road.
“I’ve never really felt so vulnerable. Overlooking the park is such a privilege, and now it’s a threat,” said Eleanore Despina, a homeowner on Fox Drive for 25 years. Before she left, she did some last-minute brush clearing, moved her furniture to the center of the rooms and left the front door unlocked. Now, she’s just hoping she can return.
Evacuation warnings have been widespread. Residents in Bolinas, Olema, Inverness Park and Inverness have been told to prepare to go on a moment’s notice, and owners of large animals are relocating. Firefighters are visiting homes to assess and prepare structures for the fire threat, bringing chippers and chainsaws with them.
Andrew Loose, the owner of Five Brooks Ranch, moved his 35 horses to various homes and ranches to the north. Last Tuesday night, a crowd of people showed up to help him evacuate, many with trucks and trailers, and several residents have lent their yards to his animals.
“It was scary, but it was also very, very uplifting to see all of the support I got from the community,” he said.
The Vedanta Retreat, a 2,000-acre property where people meditate and study, is the closest private property to the fire. Houses, living quarters, barns and some grazing land are at risk, but Warner Hirsch, a monk with the Vedanta Society, is confident in firefighters’ ability to protect the buildings.
“So far, by the grace of God and the grace of circumstances, it seems to be alright,” he said.
Because the fire is burning under extreme conditions, with wind and bone-dry fuels in a hard-to-reach area, a federal incident management team has been called in from the Northern Rockies to oversee operations, taking over from Marin County Fire. They relocated the basecamp from the Bear Valley Visitor Center to the former San Geronimo Golf Course to be further from the blaze and its impacts. The team is estimating that the fire will be contained on Sept. 8.
Because lighting has started hundreds of fires across California, resources are scarce. For the first couple of days, air support was unavailable, and the fire exploded in size from 50 to 700 acres last Tuesday. Late last week, a squad of air tankers came to the rescue, dropping hefty loads of fire retardant and water on the fire’s edge.
Since then, the larger planes have left and a pair of amphibious planes, called super scoopers, have picked up the work, running back and forth between Tomales Bay and the fire. Helicopters are also filling buckets from ranch ponds and reservoirs to dump on the flames, when the air is clear of fog and smoke.
Initially, the fire appeared to threaten Bolinas because the southern edge was active, and Marin County Fire officials reported that the blaze was four miles away from the town, based on a best estimate absent infrared mapping. In fact, the fire is about six miles away, and the southern edge has since calmed. Firefighters cut line through the coastal scrub along Bear Valley Trail and Coast Creek where it runs down to the ocean, and the line is holding steady.
Operations chief Brandon Cichowski said on Wednesday that the team will be adding more containment to the fire soon; the current five-percent perimeter containment is thanks to the coastline, where the fire can no longer spread west.
On the northern edge of the fire, retardant and water drops had limited success among the coyote bush, huckleberry and other coastal scrub, which reaches more than six feet high. The drops land on the top, and the fire is still able to creep underneath. During calm weather, a bulldozer is creating a line along a ridge South of Limantour Road, and crews are also clearing the road in case the fire jumps the dozer line. The Point Reyes Hostel, the Clem Miller Environmental Education Center, Coast Camp and a couple of park service buildings are threatened.
Because the fire is burning in federally designated wilderness, firefighters are using tools, particularly heavy equipment, judiciously. Operations chiefs have to provide strong justification and project a percentage of success to decisionmakers with the National Park Service before putting a dozer blade in the dirt.
“The ecosystem needs fire, and so when we are in those wilderness areas, you want to be able to utilize [fire] as much as possible,” operations chief Mike Granger said. “But then right on the other side of that, you have homes and high-value resources that you can’t have fire into, so it is truly an added complexity.”
The wilderness is home to many species of wildlife that will be displaced by the fire. Dave Press, the acting chief of natural resources for the seashore, is particularly concerned about the northern spotted owl, an endangered species. Across the western United States, spotted owls have been pushed out of their habitats by logging and an intrusion of barred owls, a larger, more aggressive and more adaptable species. Marin is one of the few areas without a barred owl intrusion, but habitats for the spotted owl are still scarce. Mr. Press estimated that four to six spotted owl habitats will be burned, and although the birds will survive, they will not breed without finding a new place to live.
One species that may not survive the fire is the local beaver. The Point Reyes mountain beaver, a subspecies endemic to the peninsula, is a rodent that lives in underground burrows. Unlike bobcats, foxes, coyotes and deer, the beavers take a duck-and-cover strategy and hide from the flames rather than fleeing. During the Vision Fire in 1995, fewer than 2 percent of mountain beavers within the burn area are believed to have survived.
Tule elk, which range freely in some areas of the park, are not threatened by the fire at this time, Mr. Press said. Although they may be bothered by the planes and smoke, the herds mostly live north of Limantour Road.
Red-legged frogs and steelhead trout, both threatened species, may be impacted by drops of fire retardant and saltwater into freshwater streams, which could cause mortality. Fortunately, no frog breeding ponds are in the fire area, and the streams may be able to flush themselves. Pilots do their best to avoid dropping in water.
Fire retardant is made of 88 percent water and 12 percent ammonium phosphate, an ingredient commonly found in fertilizer that prevents combustion. While the retardant can contaminate water, it nourishes plants after a fire.
The Woodward Fire is burning both shrubland and forest. After the Vision Fire, the shrubs recovered quickly. A great concern is the old Douglas fir forests, where no fire history has been recorded. The ground is littered with dead branches and leaves, priming the forest for a hot and fast inferno. If the burn is hot enough, the regime of the forest could change forever.
“We’ll have to wait to see the extent and deepness of damage,” Mr. Press said. “It’s one thing to look at the map, but the impact itself depends on how hot the fire might be burning in a particular area.”
Fire crews cleared and chipped brush on the sides of Limantour Road on Tuesday.
By Tuesday, much of the vegetation at Sky Camp had burned, along with a few picnic tables.
An area of burned firs West of Sky Trail, between the Fire Lane and Woodward Trails.
The increase in fire crews and air support—helicopters, air tankers and super scoopers, pictured here—over the past week came as a relief for West Marin, but the Woodward Fire has stubbornly held on. Residences on three roads were evacuated on Monday evening.
Air quality in West Marin has been poor since the Woodward Fire began.