Dateline>City of Angels

In the wake of the Griffith Park Inferno, a new blog has popped up to keep Angelenos posted on the park’s recovery. It offers a wealth of information about closed trails (nearly all of them) and facilities. Despite the devastation, there’s thankfully still much to do within the park–although the best bike routes, trails and vistas will be on hiatus for months, maybe years.

But I question one park activity that’s also gone up in smoke: barbecuing. According to the blog, officials have prohibited smoking, fires, portable stoves, and even the use of designated picnic-area barbecue fixtures, until end of fire season.

Now I’m all for banning smoking in the park. And nixing uncontained fires, hibachis and portable stoves seems like a good idea, too. But quenching the park’s fixed barbecues? That seems a little extreme, given that the units are in open, well-maintained, sprinkler-fed areas quite a distance from the park’s brush lines.

Yet it’s all part of an apparently wider, panicky backlash that’s gripping this side of town. Just a few hills over, near Elysian Park, there’s a related movement afoot to halt Dodger Stadium’s annual post-game firework shows.

I swear, the do-gooders never give up… Never mind that the Griffith blaze was caused by a vagrant smoking in a wooded encampment where he had no business being. (Like he would’ve obeyed a No Smoking sign or BBQ ban in the first place.) Never mind that, even as the flames raged, fire officials stated that improperly managed overgrowth (which the city had not cleared in decades) was a major factor. Never mind that not one of Griffith Park’s historically devastating wildfires has ever been the result of a picnic-ground BBQ. And never mind that Dodger Stadium’s pyrotechnic extravaganzas are LAFD-supervised and have gone off season after season without incident.

Naaaah… We have to protect our hillsides from good ol’ fashion summertime fun.

The supreme irony is that each July 4th, in the shadow of Dodger Stadium, my entire canyon neighborhood lights up in one big illegal fireworks free-for-all. We’re talking Roman Candles and an aerial bombardment that rivals anything the Dodgers can muster. From our hilltop you can literally see dozens of backyards firing off their munitions nonstop through the night. A wondrous sight, yes, but also highly dangerous. Yet, despite all their vaunted warnings of crackdowns each year, police and fire officials are nowhere to be seen when the rockets go redglare.

There are indeed lessons to learn from the Griffith Fire; lessons more complex than banning BBQs or stadium fireworks. First, anyone who’s ever hiked Griffith Park knows homeless encampments (and their campfires) have long been a problem. Maybe the city should do more to help transients find their way out of the park and into proper shelters. Next, perhaps L.A. can adopt a saner conservation policy to clear fallen brush and timber from its parks. (Goats aren’t a bad idea.) And finally, instead of going after the Dodgers, Echo Park’s NIMBYs might consider ways they can partner with police and fire to curtail the more real threat of homegrown pyromania.

I won’t hold my breath. Unfortunately, empty, symbolic gestures disguised as “decisive actions” are always more politically expedient here in L.A.