RANGER `WASN'T JUST A MANAGER' SHE LEAVES AREA POST FOR NEW MEXICO.

Byline: JUDY O'ROURKE Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA -- The popular ranger for a section of Angeles National Forest bordering Santa Clarita is unwittingly playing out a clich(hrt), having recently left for a spot where the grass really is greener.

Unexpectedly so, since the grass growing in New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma was only greened up by winter storms.

District Ranger Cid Morgan left behind a territory of more than 350,000 acres and 10-hour workdays often spanning seven days a week, for turf a third of the size in Albuquerque's backyard. The recent rash of fires bid her adieu from a distance.

Morgan may have left three weeks ago, but co-workers and community members talk about her in the present tense.

``She is the glue that held the district together,'' said Division Chief Dave Conklin, who is serving as the district's fire manager. ``She got out there and got her hands dirty with the firefighters.''

Firsthand experience on an engine crew and her acumen grasping complexities posed by the landscape earned his praise.

For nearly five years, the petite 48-year-old was in charge of a big chunk of forest criss-crossed with utility lines, near two major freeways and skirting residential neighborhoods. She faced numerous challenges protecting its grassy and treed terrain, often from several fires burning at once.

As head of the Santa Clara/Mojave Rivers Ranger District, Morgan oversaw budgeting, nine engines, four battalions, two 20-person hotshot crews and about four patrols. But she was never just the boss.

``She didn't use it as a stepping stone, she stuck by her employees,'' said Sharon Hoglund, an administrative liaison in the Human Resources Department.

A woman who helped form a Fire Safe Council in 2002 after the Copper Fire raged up San Francisquito Canyon -- just missing her burg of Green Valley -- said Morgan helped the group land Forest Service grants that paid for a huge chipper, chain saws and a big brush mower. Lu Bole commended Morgan for attending the group's meetings, and she said the ranger cared about saving more than trees and homes.

``She came to my husband's funeral -- I really consider her a friend,'' said Bole, who recently retired from the Angeles Forest Valleys and Lakes council, which serves Green Valley, Leona Valley, Lake Hughes, Elizabeth Lake and Pine Canyon.

Ruthann Levison, chairwoman of the Sand Canyon Fire Safe Council's large-animal evacuation program, credited Morgan for her role in saving homes from the hungry Foothill Fire in 2004.

``She would say things like, `We live in an area where the natural vegetation is meant to burn' at fire meetings. I found her very direct, very matter-of-fact and terrifically nice,'' Levison said. ``Our fires took their toll on her.''

Devoting so much time to her work took its toll on Morgan's personal life. A 16-year relationship went down in blazes recently. ``I loved being a ranger, but the job on the Angeles was just too much. Work was all-consuming,'' she said. ``(My partner) had some personal problems, and I was not there for him when he needed it. Maybe somebody else can do a better job of balancing. It cost me a lot.''

Taking the position as district ranger for the Cibola National Forest was a lateral, but welcome, move. Morgan opted for it partly in response to cost-cutting measures on the Angeles, which helped trim expenses by cutting administrative costs.

``If you look at the organizational chart, we are lower than bare bones,'' she said. ``They've not only cut the meat out, they've cut the skeleton out.''

The Cibola boasts a large wilderness area and is a popular recreation spot, attracting more than 2million visitors a year. While Morgan endured the excitement of film crews invading the Angeles for shoots, at the Cibola she shares space with a defunct bombing range, in use from the 1940s to the 1970s.

``You don't need the public going in there (with) all these unexploded bombs in there,'' she said, her characteristic dry humor intact.

The land is under National Forest stewardship, but the U.S. military and Forest Service share jurisdiction for the range, which is closed to the public. No matter that she may have to contend with a group of mountain bikers seeking to open an area along the eastern edge, she packed her urban know-how.

Morgan bade farewell to entities whose infrastructure feed the Los Angeles basin with pipelines and power lines: the county's Department of Water and Power, the California Department of Water Resources, Southern California Edison, Exxon Mobil Corp., Pacific Pipeline, AT&T and Caltrans. In their place, she will meet with some more down-to-earth folks.

The Albuquerque Tercentennial Committee is lobbying to hang portable lights on the Sandia Crest. It is on the edge of the T'ufsh Shur Bien Preservation Trust -- a wilderness area the Forest Service co-manages with the Sandia Pueblo.

The Pueblo has treaty rights on Forest Service land, and members of this Pueblo and other tribes whose treaties dot the area have rights the general public does not have. No federally recognized tribes have jurisdiction in the Angeles.

The Forest Service will cast its net far and wide to replace Morgan, but some say the agency needs to fill way more than her chair.

``She wasn't just a manager in here doing a job, she cared what happened ... she cared about the forest itself and the people,'' Hoglund said.

Forest planner Karen Lessard shunned applying for a job where Morgan would be her direct supervisor so the two would have not barriers to remaining fun-loving friends. Morgan encouraged Lessard to relocate to Los Angeles from Washington, D.C., and Lessard repaid the favor by urging Morgan to apply for Cibola.

Lessard said the Angeles has a reputation for being a fast-paced forest. ``Things that happen here don't happen anywhere else in the national forest ... with all these people in the huge megalopolis at the edge of the forest,'' she said. ``(Morgan) loved rangering, the people who worked for her adored her, and she was an excellent leader; she had incredible people skills.''

Lessard remembered a night out in 2004 -- after a spate of fires -- when the two took refuge in laughter.

``There were so many things happening. It was fun to see her laugh so hard and so long a few months after,'' she said. ``(Morgan) had three fires going at once in a two-week period -- the Crown, Pine and Foothill -- three huge fires. Then, in the fall, we had all those rains and the oil spill in Pyramid Lake. It was nonstop for months on end.''

Morgan said she hopes to find spare time to resume her long-lost hobbies: hiking, camping, gardening and rescuing Labrador retrievers like her 9 1/2-year-old rescue, Jett, and 11- month-old, Sadie. Though she earned a master's degree in wildlife from New Mexico State University, the career became a glimmer in Morgan's eye during her senior year in high school.

``We went on a trip to Yosemite, and I felt like I came home,'' she said.

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(color) Fires in Angeles National Forest took their toll on District Ranger Cid Morgan, who leaves behind more than 350,000 acres.