It has been approximately two weeks since the fire fighters declared the Day Fire 100 percent contained. The fire, which began Labor Day and burned approximately 163,000 acres in the Los Padres National Forest, was reportedly started by a camper. How outrageous is it that the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy continues to fight a group of 28 local communities, including Malibu, to institute a “Malibu Parks Public Access Enhancement Plan” that calls for overnight camping in Ramirez Canyon Park.
Public discussion thus far has centered on questions of “local authority.” It’s time to consider the issue not solely in political terms, but in terms of public safety. Within less than a mile of the entrance to the Ramirez Canyon Park sit approximately 50 homes, some built more than 40 years ago and occupied by the original owners. The last thing these people and the rest of the community need is the increased threat of fire and decreased emergency access that expanded park use will bring.
The threat is real. Ramirez Canyon, the only means of entrance and egress to the park and the canyon, is a narrow, rut-filled, private country road that was never built for the traffic that even now, before park use is expanded, it carries.
The proposed campsites would be surrounded, in close proximity, on three sides by homes in a heavily wooded, old growth area. There would be limited escape for visitors and campers, in the event of fire or other disaster. Clearly the issue to be considered is public safety.
I, like countless others throughout the state, love and enjoy our parks and appreciate the beauty that has been preserved and withheld from private development. But now the shoe is on the other foot. The SMMC has assumed the role of developer and the residents of Malibu must be the ones to curtail the SMMC’s unfettered march of power, greed and reckless expansion to preserve this truly unique sense of place.
Sandra R. Sternberg