LOS ANGELES — The relentless Station fire has scoured nearly 242 square miles of the Angeles National Forest, burning through not just picnic areas and campgrounds, but the raw, solitary beauty that has long been a refuge for a sprawling city.
Ridge after ridge is a ghostly gray, laid bare of vegetation from the plunging foothill canyons to the Mojave Desert. Only scattered islands of trees were uncharred — in the deepest draws and in remote, rocky cornices on a few high ridges.
“What I saw was a pretty complete burn,” said U.S. Forest Service spokesman Stanton Florea.
The 154,000 acres burned as of Saturday constitute about a quarter of the national forest.
The area’s proximity to the urban heart of Los Angeles — and its easy access via the Angeles Crest Highway and dozens of trails switch-backing out of the foothills — makes it one of the most heavily used parts of a forest visited by 3 million to 5 million people every year.
“This is the playground of L.A.,” Florea said. “More than 70 percent of the open space in L.A. County is in the Angeles National Forest.”
The fire, the largest in the modern history of Los Angeles County, has been devastating on many levels, most notably claiming the lives of two firefighters and destroying 76 homes. Authorities said the cause was arson and have launched a homicide investigation.
With 49 percent containment Saturday, fire officials said they had controlled the last hot spots on the western edge.
But the battle wore on in the east, the fire belching out yet another ominous smoke plume as it burned into the roadless San Gabriel Wilderness Area, where bighorn sheep sometimes roam on exposed ridges up to 8,000 feet high, all less than 25 miles away from the downtown skyscrapers.
Ground crews cut fire lines in the remote area, and a DC-10 dropped retardant on the flame front, officials said. By nightfall, the fire had burned northeast and was about 5 to 8 miles from the town of Juniper Hills. But no evacuations were ordered Saturday.
In areas where the fire had come and gone, forestry officials had begun to take stock.
In Big Tujunga Canyon and the Arroyo Seco — at popular spots like Wildwood, Vogel Flats and Gould Mesa — picnic tables, barbecues, restrooms, even some trees survived. But the surrounding landscape looked like a moldering wasteland.
Forest service officials are trying to determine losses farther into the mountains. And in coming days, federal Burned Area Emergency Response teams — including biologists, soil scientists and fire behavior specialists — will set out to assess the likelihood of devastating floods and debris flows during winter rains.
The forest and the Angeles Crest Highway will be closed indefinitely. Roads throughout the area are littered with fallen rocks and debris, unmoored by the loss of vegetation.
As the fire lumbered through the high country, it destroyed the 74-year-old wood-and-granite Vetter Mountain Fire Lookout, the last lookout in the San Gabriel Mountains.
“We feel like we lost a family member,” said Pam Morey, head of the Angeles Forest Fire Lookout Association. “It’s especially hard to lose something you love to arson.”
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