Lt. Gov. John Garamendi visits Lake Arrowhead
Lt. Gov. John Garamendi toured the San Bernardino Mountains Saturday after receiving a briefing on fire crews’ efforts to contain the Grass Valley and Slide fires.
Garamendi arrived at Rim of the World High School, where fire commanders have been directing the fight against the Grass Valley blaze, around 3 p.m., about the same time a light drizzle began to fall over the Lake Arrowhead area.
Standing before a large map that shows the fires’ footprint and where fire crews have established lines to block the fires’ progress, Darren Feldman, a California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection battalion chief, outlined recent efforts against the fires.
As Feldman explained, fire crews fighting the Grass Valley fire spent Friday working in on the western edge of the fire in Miller Canyon, the toughest country where that blaze is burning.
Feldman also said firefighters must still build 8 to 10 miles of fire line along the western end of the Slide Fire to contain that blaze.
Three fire chiefs, Mike Dietrich of the San Bernardino National Forest, Tom O’Keefe of the CDF’s San Bernardino unit and Pat Dennen of the county fire department conversed with the lieutenant governor at the briefing, where officials also discussed previous and potential fire prevention efforts.
Dietrich told Garamendi he was confident that tree removal work in the aftermath of the 2003 fires – the one-millionth tree that was felled as part of those efforts was cut down earlier this year – reduced the amount of fuels that available to the fire and consequently prevented the past week’s fires from being even more intense.
“My feeling out of driving in the area is the loss (of homes) would have been in the 3,000 range rather than the 300 range,” he said.
After being briefed, Garamendi said he was interested in the Forest Care program that was launched in the San Bernardino Mountains last December. The program, administered by the CDF and nonprofit San Bernardino National Forest Association, is funded by federal dollars and partially reimburses property owners for the cost of removing potentially-combustible vegetation from their lands.
But the issue with establishing a similar program in other parts of California is finding funding.
“It doesn’t get done without money,” Garamendi said. “You can invest your money ahead of the fire or you can invest your money fighting the fires and rebuilding.”
Garamendi also said he favors the creation of a statewide blue ribbon commission to review this October’s wildfires and look for ways to improve fire prevention policies.
While touring lands burned by Grass Valley’s flames, Garamendi was driven past streets lined by blackened trees, scorched vehicles and destroyed homes.
At one stop along the tour O’Keefe and San Bernardino County Fire Marshall Peter Brierty told Garamendi that a recent project to create a firebreak by cutting away vegetation between along the top of a steep canyon slope facing Edgecliff Drive.
Edgecliff is the site of multiple wooden 1930s-style homes. Brierty told Garamendi that the Grass Valley fire would have destroyed those homes if the firebreak had not been built.
“Everybody’s convinced we’d have dead bodies over here if we didn’t have this,” Brierty said.
Garamendi's next scheduled stop on Saturday was a visit to the evacuation facility at National Orange Show Events Center in San Bernardino.
-Andrew Edwards