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July 21, 1997
Fire crews scheduled to burn 55 acres of UCSC meadowland
Controlled burn planned to reduce fire hazard, encourage native plant regrowth
When one of UC Santa Cruz's two fire engines rolls out of its garage on Tuesday, July 22, it will be heading off to set a fire, not stop one.
That's the day the campus Fire Department plans to team up with the California Department of Forestry and other local crews to burn 55 acres of UCSC meadowland off Empire Grade Road.
The controlled burn is scheduled to take place in the Twin Gates area four miles up the road from the campus's main entrance, encompassing Marshall Field on the east and west sides of the road. Both designated burn areas are on UCSC property. The west side of Marshall Field is part of the UCSC Natural Reserve.
The burn may be canceled if fires in other areas of the state require attention, or if weather conditions move outside a prescribed safety window.
Assuming all goes as planned, approximately 80 firefighters, including four from UCSC, will participate in the exercise. The City of Santa Cruz Fire Department, the California Department of Forestry (CDF), and the California Youth Authority will also send crews.
Controlled burns help the campus lessen its risk from wildland fires, said UCSC Fire Chief Chuck Hernandez. "This fire will help us reduce our danger in the future by eliminating fuel that would feed a fire," he said.
There are other benefits as well. The fire will provide training for the firefighters in battling wildland fires. It will also help combat invasive plants--mostly European annual grasses--that have spread into the area, allowing native perennial grasses such as California brome and purple needlegrass to flourish. Other native plants, such as the globe lily, California buttercup, and paintbrush, will also be given a boost.
"The ultimate goal is to maintain the biodiversity of this wet meadow area," said Natural Reserve Director Maggie Fusari. "The invasives are a problem because they swamp the natives. It's like a hostile takeover."
Controlled burning is one of the most effective ways to eliminate invasive plants, said Fusari, because the invasives have not adapted to seasonal summer wildfires, while the natives have.
"We burn in midsummer because the timing is critical. With the burn, we try to knock the seed off the invasive annuals before they swamp the system," she said. The native plants have already put out their seeds or have established root systems that won't be affected by the fire, she said.
Fusari and students in her environmental field methods class will monitor how the meadow regenerates itself after the burn, comparing it with a section of the meadow that will be left untouched by the fire. Plants will begin greening the burned area by the upcoming winter or spring if the weather is right, Fusari said.
The burn is part of UCSC's Vegetative Management Program for its "back country," Hernandez said. Three-fourths of the campus's 2,000 acres are undeveloped, and although the campus's redwood forests pose little fire danger, its meadows and shrub areas do. The program provides UCSC with a framework for combating fire hazards on an ongoing basis--work that is performed through the Grounds Department under the direction of Senior Superintendent Dean Fitch.
"What presents itself as high fuel potential is in the back country where you have manzanita brush, high weeds, and dead wood," Hernandez said.
Removing this fuel--through setting controlled fires, mowing weeds, and cutting brush--is therefore an important tenet of the Vegetative Management Program, Hernandez said. Another is to maintain campus fire roads, which slice through the wilderness area beyond campus development. There are plans to widen these roads sometime soon, said Hernandez.
UCSC is carrying out its Vegetative Management Program in partnership with CDF. As part of the cost-sharing agreement, California Youth Authority crews will remove shrubs and brush from the back country, cut selected limbs off trees, and prepare areas for additional controlled burns under the direction of CDF and the Grounds Department, Hernandez said. It is possible the work will begin this summer and that additional burns will be undertaken as well.