What will it take for Palisades trails to recover? Here’s a place to find answers — and hope
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Reporting on the 2018 Woolsey fire remains vivid in my mind. I remember observing its bright orange glow from outside the gates of the shuttered Santa Susana Field Laboratory, its starting point. From there I drove to the impromptu command post, a mostly empty fire station where no one could give me clear information about the plan to fight the blaze. I spent the following days reporting from the blackened landscape in Bell Canyon, Malibu and Calabasas.
It’s been just over six years since I’d covered what was, until January, the largest and most destructive wildfire in L.A. County modern history. But in recent months the Woolsey fire has been back on my mind — this time as a test case for ecological recovery.
Both the Woolsey and recent Palisades fires burned through the Santa Monica Mountains in ecologically similar areas. I hoped by visiting an area burned in the Woolsey fire, I could glean perspective for what we can expect over the next few years within the Palisades fire burn scar. (Loyal Wilders might remember that in January I investigated the ecological rehabilitation ahead for the area affected by the Eaton fire, which you can read here.)
To get answers, I met up with Matthew Wells, a straight-shooting restoration biologist who has worked in the Santa Monica Mountains for the past six years. He gave me hope about how land can recover if we are willing to put in the work.
This past week, Wells and I hiked through Cheeseboro Canyon, an area just east of Agoura Hills that burned in the Woolsey fire in 2018 (and the Topanga fire in 2005). I asked him to show me how the land has and hasn’t recovered since the blaze.
Wells knows this land well. He first worked in the area shortly after the Woolsey fire when he was hired to help study the fire’s damage to the region.
Wells now works for the Santa Monica Mountains Fund, a nonprofit founded in 1988 whose efforts are focused on protecting the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. At the fund, Wells oversees planting native trees, shrubs and other plants, and how to best rid the mountains of invasive plants, including quick-burning invasives like dried-out black mustard.
Wells and I started our hike walking past rolling green hills. He immediately explained that, come summer, this bucolic landscape will resemble massive heaps of oversized russet potatoes. Much of the green is from invasive weeds, including wild oats, thistle and mustard planted by ranchers who worked this land for more than 150 years. But cattle overgrazed the area, killing out native plants and trees.
Today these fast-growing non-native plants suck up all the nutrients and block the sun from reaching native plants. And when they dry out, they burn quickly. Wells and other workers mow the area several times a year to kill these intruders. Ideally, they will use the Santa Monica Mountains Fund’s seed farm and other resources to replace the undesired plants with lupines, poppies and other local perennials. Wouldn’t that be gorgeous?
As we continued walking, Wells pointed to small stands of large old oak trees. Before European colonizers arrived, the area would have been covered in valley oaks and coast live oaks. Ranchers left these small groups of trees to give their cattle shady spots to rest but cleared out much of the land to create pastures. Plus, the cattle would have eaten small saplings.
“One could use their imagination,” Wells said. “If you were in this canyon prior to ranching and all these devastating fires, there should be more oaks here, and it should be a more densely oak woodland.”
The Santa Monica Mountains Fund and other organizations have spent years planting thousands of native trees in this region. As we were walking, Wells showed me dozens of baby trees individually planted in milk and juice cartons to easily mark their location. (And yes, “baby trees” is definitely the scientific term.) It was thrilling to peek inside a carton and see a tiny oak. Someday, I will return and say in my most grandfatherly tone, “I remember when you were only yay high!”
Not all trees are thriving, though. The valley oaks, Wells said, do not tolerate drought as well as the coast live oaks. As we walked, I repeatedly pointed and asked, “Is that tree dead?” It was often not a straightforward answer. A fire had burned inside the trunk of one large oak I asked about.
“It’s hard to say how long it’s got,” Wells said. “It could last another 100 years. It could last two years. It could last two months. It could fall while we’re standing here.” (Thankfully reader, it did not.)
After a wildfire, self-appointed experts often post on social media about how fire benefits our landscape. I wanted to hear Wells’ take on that, given that several of the oaks we looked at survived two major fires in the past 20 years. Wells said there’s a significant difference between the impact of the Topanga, Woolsey and Palisades fires — wind-driven fires fed by 100-mph gusts in bone-dry humidity — and a prescribed burn that officials carry out under specific conditions to reduce an area’s fuel load.
“Fire is not inherently bad if it’s the right setting,” Wells said. “But we’re not in the Sierra Nevada and in mixed conifer. We’re in Southern California, and we’re lighting things on fire ... in this case in January, and the plants are drought stressed after a long summer, and it’s hot.”
Deeper in the canyon, Wells got a bit more animated. Here, the organization has planted purple needle grass, wild rose, sage, giant wild rye and creeping rye. Around the creek beds, they planted willows. He pointed to 2 acres where workers and volunteers planted golden currant, which was already blooming. It will feed native bees, which need a more consistent food source than invasives provide.
“It’s small, but that’s how you do it. You piece it together. You do a little bit at a time,” he said.
We walked deeper into the canyon, and Wells showed me how stark the differences were from the beginning of our trek. On one hillside, green soon-dead non-native grasses. But on the other side, lush purple sage rolling up the hillside.
If volunteers and organizations put in similar work for oak woodlands burned in the Palisades, “then you could expect similar results,” he said.
I asked Wells how soon we need to start that work. Shortly after the Eaton and Palisades fires were contained, volunteer efforts blossomed to clean up the burn areas. Then, debate broke out over the right approach.
And I’m sorry to say, Wells agreed there is no one right approach.
“People want a sound bite, like ‘Two weeks after is the best time to do X,’ but in reality, nature is complicated,” Wells said. “People are like ‘Rocket science is really hard.’ Well, this is harder. The variables are so inconsistent.”
But one thing that Wells’ group and others can do right now is yank up weeds. Arundo donax, or giant reed, is a “really terrible, terrible weed” choking out native plants in creek and river beds in the Santa Monica Mountains, he said.
“Right now is a good time to go in and start removing the Arundo because a lot of the vegetation is cleared out,” he said, adding it’d be beneficial to remove other weeds like tree tobacco and castor bean too, especially as the area gets more rain and more weeds crop up.
Wells’ dream and plan is to recover these hills and canyon by returning them to coastal sage scrub and oak woodlands. His optimism for this land is the opposite of blind faith. His hope is rooted in action. Like anyone who loves our local public lands, Wells can spiral like the rest of us about climate change and how it’s worsening heat in Southern California. But he focuses on what he can control, on the problems he can fix.
“It’s easy to get lost in those big-picture things, but I like to think at some point, we’ll solve those issues as a species,” Wells said. “You know what I can do? I can plant trees right now so that if we do solve that problem, then this area is looking better. You can’t give up hope just for the sake of giving up hope. That apathy is not going to get you anywhere in life. This is just an area that needs to get fixed.”
Want to be a part of that fixing? You can volunteer to plant trees and restore land with the Santa Monica Mountains Fund and volunteer to help replant in a burned area of the Eaton fire in April.
3 things to do
1. Restore wildland to its glory in Glendale
The Arroyos & Foothills Conservancy will host a volunteer workday from 9 to 11 a.m. Saturday at its Sunshine Preserve in Glendale. This 3.5-acre hilly landscape was donated to the conservancy in 2020 and serves as an important passageway for wildlife, including mountain lions P-41 and Nikita. Volunteers will remove invasive weeds to help foster growth of native plants. Participants are encouraged to bring shovels, hand pruners and trowels if they have them. Volunteers should bring work gloves and water, and wear sturdy shoes. Sign up at arroyosfoothills.org.
2. Get lost in learning in Fountain Valley
Want to feel more confident about using a compass and topography map? Want to know what a topography map is? Sports Basement Orange County will host a free class from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at its Fountain Valley location (10800 Kalama River Ave.). Participants will learn how to read topo maps and how to effectively use a compass. The course will also include how to take bearings and practice triangulation. Participants will receive a gear discount. Register at eventbrite.com.
3. Bike along new green space in El Monte
ActiveSGV will host a free tour and 15.8-mile bike ride from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday in El Monte to educate riders about the Merced Avenue Greenway project. The project aims to remove asphalt, build green spaces and capture more stormwater, all while reducing urban heat and creating safer paths for pedestrians and cyclists. Saturday’s ride will start at the Jeff Seymour Family Center (10900 Mulhall St. in El Monte) and follow the lush San Gabriel River Bike Path to the Whittier Narrows Recreational Area. Register at eventbrite.com.
The must-read
Just under a two-hour drive northwest from L.A., the Ojai Valley offers outdoors lovers an opportunity to unwind and reconnect with the world around them. Want to know where to go specifically for a soul reset? Times staff writer Deborah Netburn outlines six spiritual spots in Ojai, including Meditation Mount, where you take the nature trail and appreciate “awe-inspiring views and one of the largest wind chimes I’ve ever seen,” she writes. Or, for a more rugged experience, visit Meher Mount, a 173-acre expanse where the property’s caretaker Ray Johnston told Netburn that people come to “feel the spiritual energy and hike.” Personally, I need more of that as every day of 2025 passes.
Happy adventuring,
P.S.
Seeing a California condor in the wild is definitely on my hiking bingo card. But I hadn’t realized how ill-prepared I was to identify one until I saw the Ventura Land Trust’s recent post about how to differentiate a California condor from a turkey vulture. Turns out, if the large bird above you has a white triangle across its upper body resembling Texas longhorn antlers, that’s a condor. If its underside wings are grayish across its lower body, that’s probably a turkey vulture. Fun fact: When turkey vultures are hot, they’ll poop on their feet to cool off. They’ll also vomit on anything (or anyone) that threatens them. That’s some great boundary setting!
For more insider tips on Southern California’s beaches, trails and parks, check out past editions of The Wild. And to view this newsletter in your browser, click here.
