FLOWER HALTS BRUSH BURN MENTRYVILLE AREA SURVEYED FOR RARE SPECIES.

Byline: Patricia Farrell Aidem Staff Writer

NEWHALL RANCH - A tiny flower once thought extinct prompted the recent cancellation of a prescribed burn aimed at protecting another local treasure: the historic town of Mentryville.

Days before the long-planned burn west of Stevenson Ranch was scheduled to occur, federal and state wildlife officials asked the Los Angeles County Fire Department to cancel it until the region is surveyed for the elusive San Fernando Valley spineflower, recently rediscovered on the nearby Newhall Ranch property.

Results are due this week and will help determine whether firefighters will go ahead with the burn, Jose de Jesus Lopez, deputy forester for the Fire Department, said Monday.

``The controlled fire was planned to eliminate decades of drying vegetation that, if ignited, could spread to Mentryville, a historic oil town on Santa Clarita's outskirts,'' Lopez said.

``They went out last week and hiked the area. If it (the spineflower) is present, we'll document where, and we can work around it, make sure we don't damage it. If it's not there, we'll figure out what we can do based on the biological studies.''

The U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife and the state Department of Fish and Game ordered the surveys before firefighters begin the burn, Lopez said. The biologists also will survey the wild country west of Hasley Canyon in Castaic, where another prescribed burn is in the planning stages and near where the spineflower had last been spotted in 1929 before its rediscovery three years ago.

Experts will determine the range of the tiny flower, most visible in the spring after abundant rains. This year's rains make it likely to be spotted if there.

``The spineflower is not really large, so the best time to find it is now while it flowers,'' Lopez said. ``This year's a fantastic year to find it.''

The spineflower, a member of the buckwheat family, has a dime-size grayish bloom. Lopez said fire is actually good for the spineflower, which thrives on sunlight and goes dormant when shaded for years by larger plants.

The plant lives in sandy soil and will be studied on a 64-acre preserve that will be dedicated as part of the proposed 21,000-home Newhall Ranch development. Discovery that the flower isn't extinct was among environmental issues that held up the county review of Newhall Ranch. The Board of Supervisors is scheduled to take a final vote May 27 on newly revised environmental documents for the development.

If the development is approved, the canyon area now under study would be deeded to the public as wilderness parkland. The property is at the southern end of the 12,000-acre Newhall Ranch, west of Stevenson Ranch and about a mile from Mentryville, the site of California's first commercial oil well.

The town, abandoned by the 1930s, includes a series of original wooden structures highly vulnerable to fire in the dry wild country of the Santa Susana Mountains.

Lopez and other vegetation specialists had spent months compiling environmental data and other information before planning to burn off the old brush that could fuel a fire in the area and send sparks flying toward Mentryville.

Already, crews had used a large cylinderlike mechanism to crush dried brush in preparation for the burn, said Inspector Kurt Schaefer, a Fire Department spokesman.

``A lot of preparation goes ahead in preparing to burn,'' Schaefer said. ``We had crushed a lot of the vegetation, and we were about ready to go when we had a call to cancel it at the last minute.''

While the potential for a devastating fire exists in these remote canyons, the likelihood is slim because there is limited access to the area, Lopez said.

``Most of our fires are caused by people from some type of accident,'' Lopez said. ``It can be as simple as your brakes getting hot. You pull over on the freeway; a spark goes into the grass.''

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Proposed prescribed burn area