An accounting of the damage of the Eaton fire is still ongoing. Since starting in early January, it has burned more than 14,000 acres, destroyed thousands of homes and businesses in Altadena and, as of Friday, killed 16 people.
Now that the fire is 65% contained, we can begin to examine the damage and trail closures in the surrounding mountains as well. The fire is believed to have started in Eaton Canyon, a beloved hiking area, before spreading east and west into Angeles National Forest.
More than two dozen trails, many of them popular, interconnected day hikes, appear to have also burned. Many of them were favorites among locals who could walk a short distance from their homes in Altadena to the trailheads. Last week, I visited Eaton Canyon and observed the blackened manzanita and other chaparral. Even though the Eaton Canyon Nature Center burned down, the oaks and sycamores around it appear to have survived, some only singed from the fire.
To better understand where you can hike responsibly (and what areas you must avoid), I constructed the list below. To put together a better picture of the damage, I consulted mapping tool CalTopo, cross-referencing its maps and the fire footprints with lists of local hiking trails to determine which routes were in the burn area.
That said, just because a trail is in the burn area doesn’t mean it was destroyed. We’ll learn more about specific conditions of each trail in the coming months. Trails burned in wildfires often stay closed for several months to years to allow for the forest to recover and for trail maintenance crews to repair routes and infrastructure.
Keep in mind that hiking (and any other activity) is temporarily prohibited in Angeles National Forest through Friday, even outside the burned trails listed below. Officials said this measure to temporarily close the forest was necessary because the fire risk is at “critical,” the highest level of danger in the graduated scale used by the U.S. Forest Service.
The 700,000-acre area is set to reopen at midnight Saturday unless officials extend the closure. The trails below will likely remain closed even when Angeles National Forest remains open.
Trails burned in the Eaton fire
- Middle Sam Merrill Trail northeast to Muir Peak Road: This trail is also referred to on some maps as Upper Sam Merrill Trail. There is another trail northeast of this route that some maps refer to as Upper Sam Merrill Trail.
- One Man & Mule Trail (or Muir Peak Road), including Inspiration Point and Muir Peak
- Mt. Lowe Railway Trail to Mt. Lowe Road, including Echo Mountain: The first 1.4 miles starting from the Rubio Canyon Trailhead is sometimes referred to as Old Echo Mountain Trail.
- Mt. Lowe East Trail: Sometimes referred to on maps as the Upper Sam Merrill Trail, the first 0.8 mile of this trail appears to have burned. The rest of the trail, whether you take it 0.6 mile to Mt. Lowe, or continue northeast about one mile to the Markham Saddle, near the San Gabriel Peak trailhead, appears to be outside the burn zone. (Mt. Lowe itself may have burned. It is on the edge of the fire’s northern perimeter.)
- Mt. Lowe West Trail: The first two-thirds of a mile of this trail appears to have burned while the last half-mile appears to fall outside the fire’s perimeter.
- Sunset Ridge Trail: The first 1,000 feet of this trail is in the burn zone. The next 0.8 mile is not, but the last mile appears to have burned.
- Dawn Mine Trail: Outside of the first 1,000 feet that follows the Sunset Ridge Trail, the majority of this trail did not burn. One mile after you start from the Sunset Ridge trailhead, there’s a small section, about 450 feet, that did burn. The area around Dawn Mine appears not to have burned.
- Millard Canyon Falls Trail: Starting from the parking lot, the first half-mile of the path burned. The area around Millard Canyon Falls doesn’t appear to have burned.
- Lower Millard Canyon Trail: Also referred to as Millard Canyon Crest Trail, just over half of this short trail from the Millard Canyon parking lot southwest to a residential area in Altadena appears to have burned.
- Tom Sloane Trail to Saddle: The first mile heading west to Tom Sloane Saddle is burned. The remaining 0.8 mile to the Saddle is not burned.
- Chaney Trail
- Mt. Lowe Motorway to Mt. Lowe Trail Camp: The majority of this five-mile trail is burned, including the Mt. Lowe Trail Camp.
