Out of the ashes

The destructive wildfires that swept through San Diego in October burned hundreds of square miles of homes, trees and plants. In its path were several golf courses, although the courses were, in large part, spared. In some cases, the green spaces acted as barriers and slowed down the fires.

But the courses didn’t come out completely unscathed, as the following three golf course superintendents can attest. Each superintendent recounts the toll the fires took on their courses and how they responded when disaster struck.

Firefighters for a day

Dave Buckles isn’t a firefighter, but when faced with the opportunity to help, he picks up a hose – at least, he did on Oct. 22.

The course superintendent at the Rancho Bernardo Inn in northern San Diego literally faced a firestorm as the Santa Ana winds brought the wildfires to his door. Buckles and his crew jumped in to help save several houses around the course.

When Buckles first assessed the threat of the fire hitting the course that morning, the fire was three-quarters of a mile away in the brush, heading for the homes that separated the brush from the golf course. He then noticed a yard on fire at a house off the sixth green.

“We jumped over the fence, I grabbed a hose from the yard, and my assistant grabbed one from the neighbor’s yard,” Buckles says.

Even though the wind was blowing away from the course, the fire was moving closer. Buckles’ assistant, Estevan Chavez, went back in to the maintenance shop to make sure nothing was in the fire’s path. Buckles was on his way there too when he noticed the fire had crept up to 100 yards into a native area beside the course.

“I was just like, holy smokes,” he says. “The fire was now right next to the golf course.”

Buckles saw a 70-foot pine tree go up in 100-foot-tall flames, looking like a huge match stick, he says. He grabbed a rake and a shovel from the irrigation pump station and spent a half hour pushing materials back into the fire in an attempt to make a fire break and keep the destruction at bay. He looked around the top of the canyon in which the golf course sat and saw a home ablaze.

“I was standing there with my rake in my hand thinking, what am I doing?” he says. “That’s when I decided to get out of there.”

Buckles went back to the homes where he fought the first fire and noticed a yard with a line of six Italian cypress trees on fire. He struggled a moment, trying to figure out what to do.

“I finally decided to grab a hose and see if I can fight it,” he says.

Buckles worked for two hours to keep the stubborn blaze under control, only to turn around and find the fire found its way to other lawns, using landscaping as fuel. He got to work hosing more plants and tearing down fences to keep the fire from spreading to houses. He finally jumped on the roof of one of the houses to douse it and keep the embers from igniting there.

Not long after, some of Buckles’ crew members found him, and after their initial shock of seeing their boss on a roof with a garden hose, they joined in, hosing down flames and dumping swimming pool water on the fires. Buckles and his crew of eight spent the rest of the day fighting fires and keeping the flames away from nine houses around the course. They weren’t able to save a tenth. The crew has gotten national media attention for its brave act, but Buckles says they didn’t do it for the recognition.

“It’s a matter of being there,” he says. “When you see the landscaping or the yard on fire it’s a matter of either sitting there and watching it burn or trying to do something. We basically tried to do something. I’m proud of my guys for being there and being willing to step out and do what they could. It would have been just as easy to sit on the course with lawn chairs and take bets on how high the flames would get.”

A combination of the region’s rain deficit and the 30- to 40-mph winds create the perfect conditions for fast-spreading fires, Buckles says. His course was spared, except for some trees along the perimeter and some of the course’s landscaping, which became fuel for the fire.

Shocking discovery

The Pala Mesa Resort didn’t fare as well as the Rancho Bernardo Inn golf course. Mark Louder, superintendent at the course in Fallbrook, 25 miles north of Rancho Bernardo Inn, was supposed to start cutting his turf that morning after recently overseeding. That didn’t happen - the area was evacuated. He thought nothing of it because there was no wind in the area.

“I thought they were overreacting,” he says.

Louder was watching the news at home that evening when the report said the entire resort burned to the ground.

“I couldn’t believe it,” he says. “I had to go see it for myself.”

But when Louder finally got back to the site Wednesday, he found that wasn’t entirely true. The hotel escaped fire damage, but an office building and the course maintenance building were gone. His equipment was charred. Until Louder can replace all that was lost, he has to use what he can get. He called his equipment suppliers who started pulling together loaner equipment.

“We’re mowing things with mowers that weren’t intended for that purpose,” he says, adding he had to use trim mowers for fairways. It was just a nightmare trying to get the green heights cut,” he says.

The roughs were 5 to 6 inches tall and the greens were at least a half inch high after several days with no mowing.

The fire cut power to most of the irrigation system except for a portion around the hotel. An electrician was able to get it running again and Louder rented a generator to run until power was restored.

Even though the course didn’t get water for five days, the grass held up well. The heavy watering prior to the fire because of the overseeding probably helped, Louder says. Also, the fact that the grass hadn’t been cut for days alleviated some stress. The irrigation’s central control system was in the maintenance building, so Louder will have to reprogram the entire system.

“We’ll have to check every station, find the size of the main line, check the pressure and record what kind of heads are there,” he says. “That’s a lot when you’ve got 1,500 heads out there.”

In the meantime, the irrigation is running on a temporary program that runs the whole system on a default schedule.

“It doesn’t water efficiently, but it gets the job done,” Louder says, adding the new system will have to be in place by summer for the grass to survive the heat.

It will cost $850,000 to buy new equipment to replace what was lost – insurance covers $750,000 of it. The facility itself is estimated to be a $250,000 loss. In addition, the course lost $40,000 in revenue just for canceling tournaments during the time it was closed, Louder says. Plus, arborists estimate $1 million worth of trees were burned.

“Pretty much the entire perimeter of course is scorched,” Louder says.

Casualties include mature pines, oaks and sycamores – trees that took a lifetime to get to the size they were. Oak trees probably can be salvaged, but other trees that burned, including eucalyptus and pines, are gone, Louder says. The trees were insured.

The disaster has also taken a toll on the staff, raising stress levels and pushing a few to quit. It hasn’t kept golfers away, though.

“We’ve been busy,” Louder says. “Some people want to play the course and see the damage. I’d like to say business is back to normal, but I still don’t have my equipment.”

Wake-up call

Though it wasn’t as severe, the fire claimed some of Geoff Haynes’ equipment. Haynes is the superintendent at Maderas Golf Club, just a few miles away from Rancho Bernardo Inn.

Driving to work the day the fire swept through was the most afraid he has ever been in a vehicle, Haynes says.

“I could feel the heat through the window and embers were landing on my truck,” he says.

Haynes didn’t stay at the course very long the morning the fire came through. He headed back home and watched the news with his family. When he returned to work two days later, he found a few pieces of equipment had burned. Two small mowers, one large mower and a trencher were stored under a car port and ended up in the fire’s path. The equipment represents a $100,000 loss. Two wooden foot-traffic bridges also burned. Irrigation wires ran under one of the bridges to power irrigation at two of the holes, so those two holes went without water for a couple of days but held up OK, Haynes says.

Several trees also ended up in the fire’s path. About 30 trees burned, with others falling because of the heavy winds. The crew cleared the damage, and the course was able to open five days later.

“It was frustrating, but we came through it better than homeowners who lost more,” he says.

After the fire, Haynes vowed to do something he has been meaning to do for a while: make a copy of his irrigation program plans and keep them at a separate location. He learned from the Pala Mesa course’s misfortune the unthinkable can happen.

“It’s a strong impetus,” he says. “Thankfully we didn’t lose our building. We could have been doing a lot of work all over again.”