PLANTS POP UP IN FIRE'S WAKE NATURE WALK TO SHOW OFF AREA'S NEW GROWTH.

Byline: JUDY O'ROURKE

Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA -- Everyone knows that raging wildfires can blacken miles of hillsides, incinerate whole communities and destroy the habitat for hundreds of species.

But few are aware of fire's bounty -- in the form of rare wildflowers and other colorful plants that sprout up, often just briefly, years after a blaze tears through an area.

"What people can see now, 2 1/2 years after the Foothill Fire in July 2004, is all these fire-following species coming up," said Ian Swift, director of the Placerita Canyon Nature Center and supervisor of the 350-acre natural park.

"The species will only be here for a few more years and will disappear ... It may be decades before you will be able to see them again."

Local woodlands are incubating carpets of spindly fire poppies; Phacelia, a knee-high annual with fern-like leaves and blue flowers; and California lilac, a shrub. Unusual plants that stun even naturalists are born in the furnace-like flames as their seed pods split from contact with chemicals released by smoke.

The canyons that border Santa Clarita -- Placerita, Towsley and Whitney -- have been whipped by wildfires in the past several years. They form part of the same wildlife corridor, a section of undeveloped land between the Santa Susana and San Gabriel mountains.

Months or years after firestorms, moonscape-bare hills erupt with dense regrowth and profusions of blooms. Flames cracked open the brittle, spindly fire poppy seeds in Placerita after the Foothill Fire.

"(Seeds) can sit in the ground for decades until the fire blows through," said Wendy Langhans, a naturalist with the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority.

Langhans will lecture on fire ecology and lead a nature walk in Placerita Canyon in April, pointing out burned areas in the process of recovery. The diminutive plant expert still marvels at the 6-foot-tall fire heart plant that towered over her near Towsley Creek two years after the Simi Fire touched down there.

"I have never seen it before," she said. A year after a burn, the plant sends up foliage; the next year, whitish- pink flowers crown the tall stalk. "It's a monster."

Unlike East Coast climes where periodic rains turn dead leaves and plants into humus, leaves in nearby woods can collect dust. Fires transform the debris into rich black ash.

"That would be like taking Miracle-Gro and spreading it on the ground," Langhans said. "You have perfect conditions for the birth of regrowth."

Fires also consume scrub, allowing winter rains and sun to percolate the heat-absorbing ash. In October 2003, the Simi Fire scorched more than 108,000 acres, including Towsley woodlands. In July 2004, the Foothill Fire -- sparked by a red-tailed hawk electrocuted by a power line -- burned nearly 6,000 acres, including land in Placerita and Whitney canyons. Later that month, the Crown Fire in Acton blackened nearly 12,000 acres. And last year, several small fires etched through Santa Clarita, said Sam Padilla, a spokesman for the L.A. County Fire Department, and Dee Dechert, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service.

Some animals flee advancing walls of flame; others escape down chutes to underground burrows. Dry soil provides insulation, and even an inch of topsoil can be the difference between sauna-like heat and an inferno.

For details on the nature walk, contact Dianne Erskine- Hellrigel at [phone] or Juliebear(AT_SIGN)aol.com.

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2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color -- ran in SAC edition only) New life sprouts from an oak tree burned in a brush fire last year in Placerita Canyon.

(2) New life sprouts after a fire last year in Placerita Canyon.

David Crane/Staff Photographer