Cynthia Robertson

San Diego Experience

Author of Afoot and Afield Jerry Schad Talks about Hiking Areas after Wildfires

Outdoor Enthusiast Predicts Wildflowers to Grow from Ash of Wildfires
By Cynthia Robertson
Posted on Jan 21 2008
Last updated Jan 28 2008

Though it’s already been nearly three months since seven wildfires ripped through the back country and urban areas of San Diego County, the memory of them still burns relentlessly. A drive through the San Pasqual Valley or east of Jamul along Highway 94 is particularly depressing. It’s enough to make people who love San Diego’s natural areas and wildlife feel as though they have lost something forever.

But with the recent rains and promise of life-giving sunlight, there is a glimmer of hope in those burned out hills. Hiker and outdoor enthusiast Jerry Schad can just about promise that, since he’s seen it time and time again as he regularly hits the trails in San Diego.

“I put San Diego on the map as far as trails go,” explained Schad, who is author of several hiking books, including Afoot and Afield in San Diego County.It all began when as a grad student in 1973 he went into a bookstore at San Diego State University. “I saw a book there about 50 northern California bicycle trips and I did not see anything about Southern California. To make a long story short, I became the author of “Afoot and Afield” series, and that launched my career.”

“Afoot and Afield” was his 5^th book, which came out in ‘86 for its first edition. He had already been writing for 11 years, but Afoot and Afield did the best in sales; the book is still considered the bible of hiking for nature enthusiasts.

Twenty-eight trails in Schad’s latest book published in April of last year have been affected by the 07 fires. Those 28 trails are on lands either partially or totally burned, and some of those same areas were affected in the 03 fires. In the San Dieguito River Valley, which burned from the fire starting at Witch Creek, a tributary off San Pasqual River, all but one of its trails burned in the fire. Additionally, the Blue Sky Ecological Preserve in Poway was almost completely wiped out, with only a few pockets of vegetation remaining for the deer to eat.

However, Schad will not have to rewrite the ‘07 “Afoot and Afield” book. Most of the changes he had made already were about the national forest areas around Julian.

“Those forest areas are forever changed. The Cuyamaca forest will never be the same. That fire was so intense the seeds were burned. The big cedars, white firs, will never grow back and the cone-bearing trees are dead. Even the remaining oaks are dying because of the lack of water,” he said.

Still, East County has the most recreational areas in San Diego. “The primary resource for out there in East County is public lands, like Mission Trails. East County has more recreational resources within a short block than any other area of San Diego. Let’s say you’re in El Cajon Valley. You have beautiful areas like the Crestridge Ecological Preserve. The Cleveland national forest is not very far away. Also there’s Viejas Mountain, on the other side of the casino. On really clear days, it’s a spectacular view from there.”

An instructor of astronomy and physics at Mesa College, Schad admitted that a lot of the scenery in San Diego County will be terrible for awhile. “Give it time. Explore the coast and the desert for the time being. Julian is still all right, and besides, there’s a lot of hiking opportunities right here in the city of San Diego,” said Schad, who has made his residence in downtown San Diego after years of living by Lake Murray in East County.

“It’s a matter of learning to live with wildfires,” said Schad. “For centuries, wildfires have swept through this area. There is some debate about whether or not it was as dry as it had been last year, with the fires incinerating so much.

“But in historical records from the 1800’s, I read that more than 300,000 acres had been turned in San Diego. People would look out from their little pueblos and see an even bigger range of fires than what we saw last October. Apparently, the Native Americans also had controlled and frequent burns wildfires. It was a way of life for them.”

The San Diego landscape is adaptive to wildfires, Schad explained, though there are problems of non-native vegetation taking seed after fire sweeps through an area. Non-native vegetation can actually cause more flash fuels for the future.

Many of the fires last October were caused by intense winds and sparking as power lines went down. That seems to be a major cause. How do we manage fires in the future? We really need to prepare for the next disaster. Schad explained that the remaining forest needs to be managed,like what they’re already doing up in Palomar, with clearing of dead trees, and leaving room for healthy trees so that fires can rush through.

“In not treating the land like the wilderness that it is, in a certain sense we’ve been messing with it by suppressing fires,” he said.

“One of the reasons I’m downtown is that its pretty darn safe to be here, no floods, no fire, but if even if there is, I live in a building made of concrete, glass and steel and equipped with a full sprinkler according to code. I’d never be comfortable living in Julian or El Cajon’s back country so close to the wild lands. I know a lot of people who want to live out in the back country, but the type of wild lands that San Diego has is too hazardous to live right next to. That is a risk I am not comfortable with.”

In fact, Schad has turned into the quintessential downtowner, while still holding out a great love for nature. He explained that building in density in the downtown area is a good thing. “When we live in denser areas, we travel fewer miles for groceries, school, and everything else. That means we will have more wild lands in the back country.

Rumors that nearly a third of the county burned in the latest fires are just not true. “The county has 4,000 square miles, the fires burned 300,000 square acres, which is 400 square miles, so that computes to only 10 percent of the county burning,” he said.

Schad holds that all trails will be hikable before too long, even those which were burned. “It will take just a few months, depending on the rain,” he said. “They will be looking good in a few years, hopefully with rain. If we go back into a drought, we will get a landscape increasingly like Anza Borrego foothills.”

Normally, however, because of San Diego’s climate, everything grows quickly and healthily. Regardless, we will have wildfires, so it’s a matter of whether we will have introduced non-native grasses, which burn even faster, or chaparral which will burn anyway. In either case, it will burn anyway.

What about the animals and birds affected by the fires? Birds fly away, yes, but some of their habitat was burned, and there have been found skeletons of other animals. By and large, though, animals can get away. There is the question, however, of smog and ash possibly affecting the life of birds and animals.

Even for people whose homes were spared by the fires last year, everyone still has a sense of powerlessness, living with a sort of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Schad suggests that in recovering from the devastation and preventing future tragedies, it is all a matter of making the right choices. Don’t live right in the path of where fire can easily burn. It’s like having a house in the sand and then watching the storm wash over your house. Make choices that are wise. Do research about where you live. Have a buffer of native plants so that if a fire does explode out, way out in the chaparral, you don’t’ have to bulldoze everything. Even so, you have the flying embers, so it still is a risk.

Furthermore, with each wildfire incident, response time and efforts become better. “Our response this last year was so much better than in 03,” said Schad. “And what are the odds that someone be killed? We have three million people living here, and only a handful was killed. And even that statistic points to the reminder that the wild land-urban interface is the worst possible place to live around here.”

“Any message I can leave you with silver lining on the clouds is that if we have decent rainfall, there will be some spectacular wildflowers in the spring, even in areas near Jamul that were badly burned. All it takes is some rainfall and sun. There are plenty of seeds out there ready to sprout and the ash from the fires is a nutrient. The fires cleared out all the dead brush. The right mix of rain and sunshine in the early winter months could result in a spectacular display of wildflowers.”

Schad has seen such a display time and time again. There was a fire in Fallbrook one year; the next wet year was unbelievable, with brilliant display of wildflowers. “

“Even on Otay Mountain, I’ve seen that utter blackness, and then the next thing is millions of bush poppies,” he said.

Schad is already out on the trails hiking for his own pleasure. This story is the introductory piece in a series about good hiking trails still available in San Diego County, many of them in this region’s rich back country. To know and appreciate San Diego’s natural resources is to protect and preserve them.

About the author: Cynthia Robertson is a freelance writer based in San Diego.
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