Sifting Through the Ashes : Eaton Canyon: Nature center’s director dreams of rebirth. But a county parks official says: ‘The difference between hope and reality is going to be money.’

ALTADENA —  As they picked through smoldering, blackened remnants of a place they love as much as their own homes, volunteers and staff at the Eaton Canyon Nature Center engaged last week in the ultimate of positive thinking.

“We’ll have a fantastic fire ecology park,” said park director Mickey C. Long.

What better place to illustrate what happens when someone is careless with fire, said Long, 45, and what better place to show how nature recovers?

Scorching thousands of acres of the San Gabriel Mountains and surrounding communities last week, the fire began early Wednesday with a transient’s campfire just north of the 184-acre nature center. Although Long and volunteers couldn’t say exactly how they would do it, they vowed to rebuild the collection of buildings and nature trails set along Eaton Canyon wash, where many oak trees and some of the chaparral were untouched by fire. “Nobody is talking about abandonment,” Long said.

Already, a contractor who installs drywall offered his services if the center can get the material. The Pasadena Humane Society offered snakes to start a new reptile collection.

Long, working out of his van with a portable phone, said he hoped to set up a portable office soon and restore phone service.

Still, officials with the Los Angeles County Parks and Recreation Department, which operates the park, say it is too early to predict its future. Officials estimated the cost of replacing the 5,500-square-foot building, which included a 196-seat auditorium, at $1.3 million.

“The current thinking is to get through the crisis,” said John Weber, assistant director of the Parks and Recreation Department. “Are we going to rebuild? I don’t know.”

Weber said he is sure that no one among the volunteers or the staff in his department wants the facility to close permanently, even though for several years county officials have threatened the center with closure as a way to save money.

“The difference between hope and reality is going to be money,” Weber said. “Even under the best of circumstances, we’re going to need outside funding and outside help.”

In the fights to stave off its demise from budget cuts, the center has developed a close-knit army of volunteers, Long said, and that will help a new facility to rise from the ashes.

Cynthia Null, 57, an Altadena resident who is president of the 240-member Eaton Canyon Nature Center Associates, said that as soon as possible she would hold a board meeting and public meeting to discuss rebuilding.

One of the volunteers called Long at 6:20 a.m. Wednesday to alert him that fire threatened the center. Long rushed from his home in Temple City, seeing the dark columns of smoke above Eaton Canyon.

When he arrived, he said, fire department crews, which had been in the park, were evacuating because of the intensity of fire and smoke.

Nonetheless, Long walked into the park. Heavy smoke made the journey hard but he reached the center, where flames from trees and chaparral licked the structure.

He found a way to enter and thought he would try to save the 40 or so animals in exhibits. Then he heard explosions in a maintenance shed and realized he had to leave.

He grabbed the center’s computer, containing valuable records, and fled. Nearby firefighters were more than busy trying to save three houses.

For the next four hours the center’s stucco building burned.

Records from the Pasadena Audubon Society, dating from 1904, were lost.

So were three libraries with several thousand books and periodicals, including a valuable set of two ornithological journals donated by a Laguna Hills woman.

A natural history collection of both living animals and specimens went up in flames. Two adult desert tortoises, between 50 to 70 years of age, and five 1-month-old desert tortoises perished.

Seven rattlesnakes died. So did prized king snakes and granite lizards.

“Bad Bird,” a starling that delighted schoolchildren with its sayings of “Aw, shucks” and “I want a cricket,” died.

Burned mounted specimens included a red-tailed hawk, a bobcat, an island fox and a passenger pigeon, difficult to replace as a specimen. About 400 skins of mammals and birds were lost.

Other items the fire consumed included thousands of insect specimens; a pressed plant collection with 450 specimens, and thousands of nature slides.

All of these items served in the environmental education program for adults and children. Each year, 12,000 to 15,000 schoolchildren visited the center for environmental field trips.

On Thursday, a group of five volunteers searched through the ashes, looking for encouragement.

“We found the metate,” shouted one, holding up the ancient grinding dish used by Gabrielinos who lived hundreds of years ago in the San Gabriel Mountains.

Cynthia Null surveyed the scene and singled out a huge blackened oak. “Watch that tree. Next spring there will be green growth. There may be some die-back. But oak trees in this habitat are predisposed to come back after fire.”

Anyone wanting to donate money, materials or help to rebuild the center can contact John Weber, assistant director of the County Parks and Recreation Department, at (805) 294-3500.

BACKGROUND

As of press time, the fire that raged from Altadena to Sierra Madre last week had blackened more than 5,000 acres. Fire officials reported that at least 115 homes were destroyed. Of the more than 1,000 firefighters on the lines, 29 were injured.