Suppression repair work in areas affected by the Lake Fire is resuming this week, according to Los Padres National Forest officials.
The work will reportedly repair damage caused during the fight against the Lake Fire, which broke out in July and burned 38,664 acres near Zaca Lake in Santa Barbara County.
"The Forest Service is a land management agency, and after all fires, we do our best to come in and put the land back to its most natural condition," said Division Chief Peter Stevenson, Los Padres National Forest. "During the Lake Fire, we had created contingency lines up here with bulldozers, and if the fire had ever gotten here, we would have had the lines in place to fight that fire. Now that the fire is out, we're coming back in and we're repairing the suppression lines."
Forest crews began the first phase of work on the Santa Lucia Ranger District in the Colson, Buckhorn Ridge and Pine Canyon areas on Monday.
This phase of repairs will take place over the next two weeks on Forest Roads 11N04, 11N03 and 31W14.
The second phase of the project will take place at the Figueroa, Schoolhouse, Manzana and Catway areas.
The last phase will be in the Santa Barbara Ranger District’s Upper Oso and McKinley areas.
Officials say that resource advisors and archaeological staff have completed surveys of the areas to ensure that there is limited disruption to flora and fauna. Officials also say that they are working with the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians to protect cultural resources and that efforts are being made to avoid concentrations of water runoff onto the fireline to reduce impacts caused by fire suppression activities.
"The motto of the United States Forest Service is caring for the land and serving people," Stevenson said. "We're trying to do that. We're going to bring the brush, knock down the berms. We're trying to make sure that erosion and water runs off. We're trying to do this before the seasonal rains come in."
The repairs are expected to take four to six weeks.
