ROAD COULD REOPEN EARLY BRIDGE DAMAGED IN 2004 WILDFIRE.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer

ACTON - A road closed 14 months ago by a brush fire that destroyed a bridge could reopen in three months, Los Angeles County officials said.

The construction company that started work last week on a new Aliso Canyon Road bridge over Gleason Canyon Creek will be paid $150,000 extra if it finishes by mid-December, officials said.

``We are doing everything possible to rebuild this bridge in an expedited manner,'' Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich said.

Rancho Cordova-based C.C. Myers Inc., the construction firm that rebuilt the Santa Monica Freeway after the 1994 Northridge Earthquake, was hired July 26 by county supervisors to build the new bridge. Environmental rules protecting nesting birds forbid construction in the creek bed before mid-September.

The $1.5 million contract includes a clause that pays the company an extra $5,000 for every day it shaves off the 135-day construction schedule, up to maximum bonus of $150,000. The normal schedule calls for completion in mid-January, with the maximum bonus for completion in mid-December.

Linking Acton and the Angeles National Forest, Aliso Canyon Road has been blocked since July 2004, when the 11,400-acre Crown Fire burned across 12 miles of brush-covered hillside from Acton to the Littlerock Reservoir.

The fire destroyed a decades-old wooden bridge by which the Aliso Canyon Road crossed a usually dry upper tributary of the Santa Clara River. Before the construction contract was awarded, a new design had to be drawn up, environmental studies done and the bidding process completed, county officials said.

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Construction equipment is used on the Aliso Canyon Road bridge in Acton, which may be repaired as soon as December.

Jeff Goldwater/Staff Photographer