After the Palisades Fire sparked in the Santa Monica Mountains, invasive grasses and other plants that had dried up over the rainless winter caused the blaze to burn through the hills at an astonishing rate, reaching 11,000 acres in less than two days.
The Santa Monica Mountains are used to wildfire. But as plants that haven’t traditionally grown in Southern California overrun the native plants in the landscape, fires are becoming faster, more frequent and more damaging.
“Invasive species are making our whole fire situation worse,” says Joey Algiers, restoration ecologist with the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. “It's damaging our ecosystem, and it's creating an environment that's more likely to burn, more likely to ignite.”
Settlers brought nonnative plants — like black mustard and tree tobacco — to Southern California centuries ago to feed cattle or for landscaping. But these species are not used to this drought-ridden climate. They have shallow roots and dry out quickly, becoming a tinderbox just waiting for a spark.
In contrast, native plants can typically store water through the dry summer, making them less of a fire hazard.
When there is a fire, invasive plants can quickly get a foothold in the burn scars and choke out any chance for native species to recover.
All these factors have trapped the Santa Monica Mountains in a negative feedback loop, says Algiers.
“You have more fire, you have less natives, you have more weeds, and that leads to more fire and less natives and more weeds, and more fire and on and on,” he says.
That process has radically changed the mountain range over the last decade.
In 2014, just 4% of these mountains were covered in invasive species, according to an Arizona State University study. After burning over and over again, now more than a third of the mountains have converted to invasive plants.
Pacific Palisades resident Steve Engelmann plants a seedling in front of an oak tree that survived the Woolsey Fire in 2018. Photo by Alexandra Applegate.
Algiers says to turn the clock back on an increasingly combustible ecosystem, they need native seeds. That’s why his team with the Santa Monica Mountains Fund (SMMF) has started building up its native seed stock.
Until recently, conservationists would spend days collecting only a handful of seeds from the wild for restoration projects, which wasn’t enough to immediately start repairing land after a fire.
Now, SMMF is growing more than 23,000 native plants at two small seed farms — a one-acre farm in Paramount Ranch and a new five-acre farm at Rancho Sierra Vista/Satwiwa. The five-acre farm was just planted in January.
Farming these native seeds will significantly increase the team’s supply and help rapidly scale up restoration efforts in the mountains, says Algiers.
On the five-acre farm, a crew is planting native grasses, like purple needle grass. This farm is expected to eventually produce hundreds of pounds of seed each year.
Benjamin Vizcarra-Barton, seed technician with the Santa Monica Mountains Fund, weeds a line of plants at a seed farm in the foothills of Boney Mountain. Photo by Alexandra Applegate.
Once all those seeds are harvested later this year, crews will throw them into fire zones and restoration sites, then return to weed out invasives. That’s already happening on a small scale where the Woolsey Fire burned in 2018.
“The goal now is, especially with grassland species, to be able to cover fields of land, like acres at a time,” says Benjamin Vizcarra-Barton, a native seed technician who works at the farm.
Vizcarra-Barton says his team’s vision is to build farms throughout the Santa Monica Mountains. Then, conservationists can plant local seeds quickly after a fire, before invasive species take root.
However, Algiers says it's a lot of work to create and maintain these farms, leaving them to rely heavily on volunteers. It’s also expensive, and they only have guaranteed funding for another 18 months.
Vizcarra-Barton says by restoring native plants, Angelenos can change their relationship with these fire-plagued hills so everyone can thrive.
“You will notice the difference when the native plants return — the birds will sing, insects will buzz,” he says. “Our very lives depend on us being able to have a connection with the earth, not only because we can stop losing people's homes in these fires and losing lives in these fires, but because that is what life is all about.”
Volunteers and staff with the Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains carry buckets in Nicholas Flat to water live coast oak seedlings. Photo by Alexandra Applegate.
The Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains, a public agency that works to restore the land, is also using native seeds to revive the Woolsey burn scar. They focus on a specific keystone species: the coast live oak.
Not only do these native oaks support the habitats of some 250 species, but they’re also surprisingly fire-resistant. They have brambly canopies and thick trunks that can shield against flames, slowing or stopping a fire.
Many oak trees survived the Palisades and Woolsey Fires — but others could not withstand the heat and flames. Since it can take up to 50 years for an oak ecosystem to fully regrow, district employees are watering and replanting the trees that were lost.
In total, the district is caring for more than 650 oaks in the mountains through the first three years of life.
“We want to make sure that as these habitats are changing, especially post-fire, that we're not losing that receding canopy, and instead we're maintaining it,” says Alyssa Morgan, project manager with the district. “That's one of the best ways to control invasive species.”
To decide where to plant the oaks, the district identifies fire-prone areas where the trees are also projected to survive a warming climate a century from now.
The Resource Conservation District cares for around 650 oaks in the Santa Monica Mountains. They plant seedlings inside cages to protect them from wildlife. Photo by Alexandra Applegate.
On a recent Sunday, a dozen volunteers helped plant nearly 50 coast live oak seedlings and watered 200 others, using buckets full of water; chicken wire; and a plastic container of acorns.
While it may be nearly impossible to completely control the invasive plants that are overtaking the mountains, these conservationists say it's not a losing battle.
“Even when I don’t really see the light at the end of the tunnel, I just keep going. And I definitely have faith that [the mountains] will reach a better place for it.” Morgan says. “Planting a tree is planting hope.”