PARK HAS 24-HOUR RANGER; CEREMONY MARKS OPENING OF NEW TOWSLEY CANYON STATION.

Byline: Patricia Farrell Aidem Staff Writer

Four thousand acres of lush wilderness surround the Dailey family home, a rustic two-story house in the Santa Clarita Woodlands, where a mile away bulldozers churn up the soil of one the state's fastest-growing cities.

Wayne Dailey is the first resident ranger at the Woodlands state park, enjoying the perk of a home on a rare piece of land in the Santa Clarita Valley that is unspoiled by development.

``We have a bobcat that hunts on the lawn in the late afternoon,'' Dailey said. ``There's lots of deer, we hear coyotes at night and see a raccoon now and then.''

On Saturday, Dailey hosted a dedication ceremony of his new home and attached Woodlands ranger station. The purpose, he said, was to bring the public into the park and to make people aware of the ranger's role in managing this suburban forest.

Dailey is in charge of the land as far as his eye can see from the front porch of his newly renovated, Spanish tile-roofed, multiwindow home in breathtaking Towsley Canyon. Over a hill to the east of his home lies bustling Santa Clarita, but from his balcony he hears birds, wild animal calls and wind rustling through the trees - not a sound from the nearby freeway and housing tracts below.

``This will be great,'' Dailey said of the home the family moved into last week. ``We're up where it's nice and quiet, secluded in a great park. But we're close to civilization.''

Dailey, 28, his wife, Debbie, and their 2-1/2-year-old daughter Christine live in the four-bedroom, three-bath house. The couple is expecting a baby boy in April.

With a toddler around, Dailey had to has had to do a little work around the house and laid plans for special fencing to keep ``critters out of the yard.''

Critters include everything from black bears, mountain lions and rattlesnakes to skunks, gopher snakes and alligator lizards ``a foot long.''

Dailey has worked for nearly 10 years as a ranger for the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy's Mountain Recreation and Conservation Authority. He's had past assignments as resident ranger at state parks in Simi Valley and Moorpark and now is supervising ranger for territory that includes the Woodlands, but stretches from Ventura County to Palmdale to pockets of wilderness near downtown Los Angeles.

Dailey started his career at the Woodlands - as a volunteer in 1989 - and worked there off and on over the decade after he was hired by the state.

He's on duty now 24 hours a day, the reason he lives on site. In his garage sits a fire engine he checks daily before making rounds across the thousand or so acres that are his front yard.

CAPTION(S):

PHOTO (color) Wayne Dailey, the first resident ranger at Towsley Can yon, lives on site in the newly refurbished station shown in the background.

David R. Crane/Staff Photographer