 rolling toward the California shore, the mighty Pacific Ocean helped man check a wild fire. How all this happened is a story. The story of a watershed fire took place near the city of Santa Barbara. To the northwest are the foothills of the Santa Anais mountain divide, whose brush-covered canyons unfold like a blanket of green. Now, fly through historic San Marcos pass in Los Padres, and you are in the heart of the Santa Anais watershed. This watershed feeds the Great Kachuma Reservoir, and through irrigation supplies water for the heavily farmed coastal terrace and canyon floor. The region produces truck crops, drain and pasture, nuts, lemons and avocados. Farmers and ranchers depend on a constant supply of life-giving water from these mountains. Los Padres national forest lands make up 70% of the Santa Anais drainage. The natural growth of sage and chaparral has little commercial value, but grass and the roots of scrubby brush help the land store the precious winter water. Every year, thousands of summer residents, campers and picnickers move into the cool green hills. Water keeps their paradise alive. Water held in the hills by nature's green blankets. Burn this blanket, and you can wreck the watershed. Many service agencies, including the local fire departments, help the Forest Service protect these watersheds. Closer to the hills and Forest Service headquarters, fire-controlled crews are constantly trained. During the fire season, both national forest and private land are patrolled by forest rain. Late one summer in one of the worst extended periods of fire danger in years, the rangers closed the forest. Still, they had a fire. At a ranch in the foothills, a generator house caught fire. The water shed with its precious plant cover was aflame. The distant smoke signaled disaster. Additional firefighters were rushed to Refugio Pass where the fire had started. The forest fire is from the air. A helicopter gave the fire boss a movable platform, a vantage point from which he could direct the attack. Smoke from the blaze billowed for miles. And there it was, licking the ridge. Ironically, they named the fire Refugio, which in Spanish means refuge. It looked like a big one. The fire had picked a bad time to happen. With more than 50 other fires going in California, federal and state forestry officials were being hard-pressed. A manpower crisis and equipment shortage were shaping up. On the fire line, the first crews never dreamed it would take 2,500 people nine days of continuous work to control the fire. A terrible price to pay for man's carelessness. But they did see that the fire's early rate of spread defied control efforts. On the ridge trails, men stretched hoses down the rugged terrain. Additional bulldozers supplied by the Navy and surrounding counties were brought in to help the forest service cut fire lines. They worked in pairs in threes, building defenses, and connecting the roads. One vital fire line was cut by eight bulldozers working side by side. Only by removing the fuel from the advancing fire could the hungry monster be stopped. One's plotted strategy checked shifting winds and worried about equipment and manpower. Their crews of regulars and volunteers needed rest. They were reinforced by firefighting Indians, flown from New Mexico and Arizona. About to be sent to various camps along the growing fire perimeter, the men moved as a relaxed team, saving their strength for the battle ahead. In steep, rugged country, it takes trained men to fight wildfires. They moved canyon growth until it frequently seemed to explode. By 30 mile an hour winds, the fire jumped three quarters of a mile and started spot fires. Not all of them were caught. Rising hot draps made the fire burn up the slopes, consuming everything in its path. The watershed became a red hell, a hell that roared and destroyed nature's protecting cover. Sea bees and marines were ordered into battle. Men and equipment had to be rushed to the fire lines, which now stretched for 70 miles around the fire. Wind-driven flames became a real threat to cities in the valley below. Running a mile an hour, the fire blew out of control. Nights and days, weather refused to relinquish control of the rampaging and erratic mountain fires. Veteran firefighters, both state and federal, agreed that weather held the whip hand, as wind shifted the flames in one direction, then another, burning 85,000 acres of watershed. The firefighters' arsenal was equipped with the latest weapons. Nevertheless, the fiery necklace embraced the hills. When the blaze jumped the roads along the south coastal slope, traffic had to be stopped by the highway patrol and the county sheriff's office. No matter how much the drivers complained that their perishables would spoil, Highway 101 and old Marcos pass were closed. Highway 150 was partially closed. Only emergency traffic could get through. Roads also served as airstrips for helicopters. The Refugio Canyon fire respected nothing. Even the Great Southern Pacific Railroad had its schedules of passengers, mail and freight, interrupted when it was signaled to a stop. The railroad heated the warnings issued by the fire headquarters. The fire has jumped the tracks, ties, power lines and telephone poles are ablaze. All traffic is stopped. People who lived in the hills had to be evacuated as fire threatened their homes. About a hundred Marines were ordered to bear Creek tanks. Directed by forest rangers, they helped state and county fire crews in a bold backfiring tribe. The Marines used regulation flame throwers. Fighting fire with fire is a dangerous operation. The tactic is to burn the fuel ahead of the advancing fire. Selecting the time when wind and weather were most suitable was a job for experts, for men with knowledge born of long years of research and experience. A desperate touch and run job, but a sure way to stop the fire from spreading if it worked. Was a success. The weary men had earned their rest. To supply, service and feed the army of 2,500 firefighters, three camps were set up. Men and equipment were mobilized from a hundred mile area to take part in the fight. Firemen came all the way from Los Angeles. Even before the fire was out, water and land management experts met with local authorities at the federal building to plan emergency measures to reduce erosion and flood damage hazards. They surveyed fire damage from the ground and from the air. By helicopter they set out to figure which creeks might flood now that the slopes will burn bare, which areas had to be receded for temporary cover to help check and hold the flow of heavy rain. Which stream channels had to be cleared? Four million dollar destruction and the eight hundred thousand dollar battle presented a grim spectacle as the Kachuma watershed was rolled up into a cloud of smoke. Now, some of the same firemen and equipment were used in mop-up work. At long last the fire was surrounding. Some fire lanes held, some roads held. Some didn't. From Santa Barbara to the north was a near solid mass of charred blackened brush. Some properties were safe. Heavy bulldozing kept the wildfire from this residence. A new house on the hill caught fire. A few burned to the ground. Many citrus orchards were scorched. Even a wooden tank full of water burned. Guard rails on Highway 101 hardly slowed down the great destroyer. A shock to the whole was the blackened California landscape. Here the Southern Pacific right away had been crossed by fire. Communications were interrupted when telephone poles burned like matchsticks. From the mountaintops to the canyon floors the land was ravaged. It is here that the mighty Pacific Ocean helped man check the wildfire. For several miles the ocean served as the barrier on one side of the fire. Nature's blanket was gone. The black mountains sprinkled with white ash looked unreaved. Pushed was the battleground. The only noises were the rumblings of rocks loosened by the fire. The severe burn almost enveloped the watershed. Before the fire an acute water shortage already existed in the south coastal area. Now the supply would be even more limited. Because the fire burned all the way to the water's edge, ashes and soap would collect in the reservoir, cutting down its capacity. Under the onslaught of rain, stark and naked peaks would soon shed their thin skins of soil, unless covered by another green blanket. Flood was the new worry. Nothing was left on the land to hold or to soak up or to slow down the water. In the rainy season, four inches of rain in one day is common in the mountains. Water would wash the black hills and dump ashes and mud on the civilization below. Dried stream beds were a concern. Could they carry the expected flood waters? Investigators found downstream channels choked to the bridge heights. An immediate task was to clear these channels. The Secretary of Agriculture had promptly allocated emergency funds. Bulldozers went to work. U.S. Department of Agriculture agencies, cooperating with the local soil conservation district and the county, tackled the big job. The task called for clearing 47 miles of channels to reduce flood damage hazards. The land was being prepared for the aftermath of fire by some of the same bulldozers which cut fire lines just a few days before. Soilsmen and engineers hoped to make the water flow, not flood. Technicians found that the burn had extended into the soil. The roots of the grass and brush carried the fire down two and three inches. One rain and the ash would form a hard crust. While the ash was soft and fluffy, was the time to seed the watershed. A fleet of airplanes took on the tough job. Each strips, each plane flying a predetermined flight plan, dropped its cargo of seeds and hope. Constant communications between flag men and the director at the airport was maintained to assure complete coverage. Sampling boards were spotted throughout the rough terrain to check the distribution of seeds. Flagmen reported directly to the pilots with flag signals for each successive run. By sowing grass seed immediately after the burn, these teams tried to take advantage of the first rain so as to get the best results. When the weather was good, they seeded as long as there was light. Then, with all his science and ingenuity, is but a speck when he tackles the gigantic job of reseeding a watershed. Then, 21 days after authorization, more than 65,000 acres of national forest and privately owned watershed lands were sown with grass seeding. The weather held. Grown-up lands were sown with grass seeding. The weather held. Growing conditions were right. With man's help, a temporary blanket of green returned to the land. And so, a miracle. The miracle of new plant cover. Given this protection, the old growth may eventually return and find the soil together again. The Refugio Canyon fire is now history, but its grim reminder of man's carelessness will be around a long time. It takes years to grow a brush cover as effective as the one that wildfire destroyed. On steep slopes in Southern California, grass is only an emergency stopgap. Reseding can never restore the homes, the recreation areas, and the wildlife that were destroyed. You must be ever alert to the threat of fire. Here, scorched earth was the price of human carelessness. Your help and support are needed in fire prevention, fire detection, and fire control if the watersheds are to help you. When you safeguard earth's green blankets, you protect yourself and your land forever.