DRY SEASON
Brush and timber is so dry in the San Gabriel Mountains it’s if heavy breathing could set it ablaze. Golden grasses waver in a warm breeze while a light coat of dust seems to take the life out of spindly cactus flowers and yucca spears. In early summer morning overcast usually dampens the temperatures and staves off fire season until later in September and October but the winter was dry, almost no rain, and now even majestic oaks have lost their sheen and seem to have given up hope. In San Dimas Canyon the asphalt is crumbling and it’s only a lane and a half-wide past the point where it winds steeply uphill towards the dam. A Forest Service fire camp is at the end of the road and one of the firemen is up on a ledge behind the garage. He says the road goes into the experimental forest, a kind of wilderness area in the Angeles National Fo...