Spared by the fires of recent years and now densely packed with dried brush, the hills along Kanan Road are this season’s primary passageway for a potential wildfire burning from inland to the sea. Consequently, Malibu-based L.A. County fire officials are keeping a close eye on those hills, which they call the “Kanan Corridor.”

Uncontained fires originating in or near the Kanan Corridor have, because of wind patterns, historically threatened Malibu Park, Trancas Canyon and Broad Beach.

“We’ve had fires out at the western end [October 1993], in Topanga [November 1993] and the Calabasas fire [October 1996] ” said Cliff Sybert, a county fire battalion chief. “Kanan has the oldest brush and the oldest dead material.”

Fire officials have set controlled fires along Kanan Road to create buffer zones against rapidly-moving wildfires. “Any fuel we can remove slows the fire down,” said Sybert.

The prescribed burns, some as large as 100 acres, were conducted in the early morning hours on five occasions in August.

The National Park Service and the county are also coordinating a prescribed burn in Zuma Canyon, planned for later this month. Charlie Whitman, a prescribed-burn technician with the park service, said the controlled burn there was held off until September because the moisture level in the canyon’s lush plant life was too high from the heavy rains earlier this year.

“The moisture level is down finally,” said Whitman. “El Nino, on the whole, did create a higher live fuel moisture.”

The prescribed burns are set only under the strictest air quality and weather conditions. The AQMD will not permit the burns if the air is too smoggy, and fire officials will not conduct a controlled fire if wind speeds are too high or if the moisture level in the marine layer is too low.

In addition to the prescribed burns, the fire department’s brush clearance unit inspected more than 2,000 properties to ensure that owners have removed brush from within 200 feet of their homes. Sybert said a few property owners refused to clear the brush themselves. Those landowners were fined $400 for the cost of county workers removing the brush, and their cases were referred to the city attorney’s office. City Attorney Christi Hogin is on vacation and could not be reached for comment.

See related story, “Life and Arts”

It is still unclear how the owl wound up with a gopher snake wrapped around it. As owls and snakes share a taste for rodents, they could have had a dispute over breakfast — jockeying for position on the food chain.

On the other hand, owls have been known to eat snakes, so it’s possible this owl tried to bite off more than it could chew, so to speak. Gopher snakes, unlike rattlesnakes which are pit vipers, are not poisonous, so their only defense against predatory birds is to constrict, wrap their coils around the attacker and squeeze.

In any case, last Thursday morning, Marlon Peyton, who manages the Fauna Foundation animal rescue facility above Las Flores Canyon, came upon what he at first took to be a dead owl. “I was feeding the goats and the pigs when I saw the bird,” he said. “I thought it was dead, then I got closer and saw the snake. I asked Richard to give me a shovel. I couldn’t see what kind of snake it was.”

Volunteer Richard Semenowicz, who has a particular affection for owls, came along and saw the snake coiled around the owl. “We touched the snake with a shovel, and then we could see it wasn’t a rattlesnake. It moved away into the bushes.

“The owl was in shock. Then I saw she moved a little bit,” he said. “We netted it and called the wildlife rescue.”

Rebecca Dmytryk came and took the owl to the California Wildlife Center in Malibu Canyon. From there it went to Conejo Valley Veterinary Hospital, where it rooms with another bird rescued the week before.

“It looked like it was going to be all right,” Dmytryk said.

Semenowicz’s theory is that the owl was hunting for rats or mice and that the snake was doing the same thing. Whether one of them had actually caught a rodent and the other tried to take it away is still a mystery. Peyton said he thinks the owl may have tried to grab the snake, not realizing how long it was.

“It was three-and-a-half feet long at least,” Semenowicz said. “The owl was a mottled gray and quite big with beautiful eyes. I’m an owl lover. I live up the hill and we see owls here all the time. I hear them talking.”

Well, the other owls certainly have something to talk about now. Trouble is, without an avian interpreter, no one is likely to find out whooo attacked whom.

It’s a question that has been on the mind of every Malibu motorist since the summer began: When will we see the opening of that long-awaited, temporary third lane on PCH? The answer is — we won’t.

With many residents ready to blow their gaskets, the second question is: How long will we be down to just two lanes? That answer — a lot longer than expected, possibly into next year.

Caltrans has nixed the idea of adding an additional lane to accommodate rush-hour traffic, citing further delays in its hillside grading project at Las Flores. “It’s pretty much a definite decision,” says Caltrans spokeswoman Margie Tiritilli. “What we’re trying to do is get the work done as quickly as possible.”

Said City Manager Harry Peacock, “The downside of opening a third lane is slowing down the project in the rainy season.”

In addition to restricting the work space for construction crews and their equipment, reconfiguration to accommodate a third lane could prove potentially dangerous. “It’s a matter of safety,” explained Assistant Resident Engineer Edmond Matevosian. “We cannot remove those sea trains [cargo containers] until the majority of the dirt is gone.”

Caltrans says the work has reached the halfway mark, with approximately 173,000 cubic yards of dirt cleared as of last week and another 170,000 cubic yards yet to go. Even so, removing all the dirt and debris is only part of the project. The area will have to be given proper drainage, as well as erosion control. Plans for a pair of concrete retaining walls have yet to be finalized.

Even though the work continues daily, a completion date could be months away. Everything from a rough patch of terrain to an afternoon rain shower could postpone the project. For that reason, there are no easy estimates. “Optimistically,” says Matevosian, “end of December — optimistically. Realistically — mid-February.”

The assistant engineer, however, did have some good news to report. According to soil testers and engineering assessments, the hillside has stabilized. One bluff-top property, it appears, will also be spared. There had been some discussion about the removal of another home on Sierks Way and the purchase of an adjacent vacant lot, but that may not be necessary. “They’ll stay,” he said. Two homes that were coming close to the point of collapse were purchased and demolished by Caltrans earlier this year.

Mammoth traffic jams, meantime, have become as familiar to Malibu as the dolphins and the high tide. On Sunday afternoon, campers and convertibles, motorcycles and MTA buses spent another day idling in the summer sun. The squeeze after Big Rock created a standstill that stretched back to Topanga, and there seems to be no end in sight. With luck and cooperation from Mother Nature, it could be over by the end of the year. Without luck and cooperation, we could be inching toward the millennium on a very rocky road.