Much like trash, keeping the graffiti at bay in Eaton Canyon was a constant battle for Angeles National Forest volunteers. Nearly every week, park patrons with little understanding of nature’s beauty would enter Eaton Canyon intending to deface public property. While most of the blame went towards hoodlum teenagers, the culprits have been found in all demographics, including one mother (with three children under 10 alongside her) who was caught defacing a rock below the Pinecrest Gate in July 2023 and subsequently chewed out by other park visitors.
USFS Volunteer Pat Bylard clears graffiti just above the Chuck Ballard Memorial Bridge, September 2023
While Eaton Canyon enjoys its longest break from human activity in recorded history, a small group of certified Angeles National Forest volunteers has been coordinating with Eaton Canyon Natural Area Park staff to access limited areas of the canyon and get ahead of the graffiti battle before the eventual grand reopening. In previous years, volunteers were often so occupied with removing tagging from highly visible locations that they had little time to address more remote sites.
During a recent outing, USFS volunteer Pat Bylard mentioned that he was finally able to reach an area he had been monitoring for years but had never been able to prioritize because it was, in his words, “out of sight, out of mind.”
On Wednesday, March 25, 2026, the County of Los Angeles Department of Parks and Recreation hosted a community meeting to share its conceptual understanding and plans for the rebuild of Eaton Canyon. Included in the discussion were four panelists: Megan Horn of Studio MLA, Kim Bosell with the County of Los Angeles, Marcus Gonçalves with SWCA Environmental Consultants, and Tim Becker of the Theodore Payne Foundation.
During the discussion, the panelists shared their understanding of how Eaton Canyon served the broader Los Angeles Community before the Eaton Fire, how a future nature center can better meet the needs the canyon serves, what lessons they’ve learned from past wildfires that will help inform their decision-making, and how the County plans to reconstruct the park.
Of particular note was the County’s emphasis that they understand Eaton Canyon is not like its regular grass-and-playground urban parks; it is a native landscape where natural processes are left to shape the park on their own. Dead trees are left to rot (so long as they aren’t next to public amenities), debris flows are free to reshape the canyon, and native plants complete their lifecycle without any intervention from humans. Here were the key pointers:
Designing a System, Not a Place
A recurring theme across disciplines—ecology, engineering, and landscape architecture—is that Eaton Canyon must be treated as a system. According to Studio MLA Principal Megan Horn and her understanding of her team’s role, this system must:
– Accommodate wildfire and post-fire flooding – Create a defensible structure that protects both the building and the surrounding neighborhoods – Stabilize slopes and manage sediment transport – Support native plant regeneration – Integrate recreation without compromising recovery
This approach extends to infrastructure. Any new facility, including the proposed Landscape Recovery Center (LRC), must be defensible by design and capable of withstanding fire exposure while minimizing risk to both people and the surrounding environment. Importantly, Megan noted, this is “not a blank slate.” The site carries constraints, history, and ecological memory. Designing within that context is essential.
Rethinking Restoration
For those who have worked in Eaton Canyon for years, this is not unfamiliar territory. Regional Operations Manager Kim Bosell, with over a decade of experience working onsite, emphasized that recovery is never straightforward. Each fire teaches different lessons, including what works, what fails, and what must change. To her, the central conclusion is clear:
Eaton Canyon cannot be rebuilt as it was. This was true following the 1993 Kinneloa Fire, and it will be true following the 2025 Eaton Fire.
Instead, recovery must be approached as an adaptive process. This means the county plans to correct past vulnerabilities, design for future weather extremes, and accept that Eaton Canyon is a whole new park that is in a different chapter of its life from when we last saw it.
Aiding Nature In It’s Recovery
Although the County is directing resources towards understanding its future presence in the canyon, it is also allocating resources to aid the park’s natural recovery. This is where Marcus Gonçalves, with SWCA Environmental Consultants, and Tim Becker of the Theodore Payne Foundation, come in. Here, the panelists shared that they understand that both their organizations and the County of Los Angeles have a responsibility in aiding Eaton Canyon in its natural recovery. Tim Becker, in particular, noted that “although nature can recover on its own, the timescales we are discussing here are a human lifetime. In fact, they may even be longer as we keep negatively impacting the park.” Through climate change and user impacts, the full natural recovery of Eaton Canyon depends on our ability to support it. How does one do that? First and foremost, remove the invasive plant species.
Every Friday since August 2025, the County of Los Angeles has supported group volunteer efforts in the canyon to remove invasive plants. Members of the general public have been targeting these plants that do not belong in Southern California, including Short-pod Mustard, Castor Bean, Tree Tobacco, and other annual invasive grasses.
Volunteers gather before heading into the canyon to conduct invasive weed removal
Ultimately, the County wanted to share that moving forward, recovery at Eaton Canyon will be deliberate—act where needed, but do not rush decisions that will affect the site for decades.
This is not a simple rebuild. The canyon sits in a high-risk urban–wildland area, and the old way of managing it is no longer sufficient.
Winter 2026 was one of the most highly anticipated winters in decades at Eaton Canyon. As the first full water year following a major wildfire, what occurs during this particular season will have a profound impact on the trajectory of Eaton Canyon’s recovery.
Through observation, biologists and ecologists have noted discrepancies in how Southern California ecosystems respond to wildfires that occur during different stages of inter-decadal drought and flooding. If the first water year following a wildfire is hot and dry, native shrubs can fail to regenerate, creating openings quickly exploited by invasive annual grasses. This “type conversion” locks the area into a grass-dominated state that burns more frequently and with greater continuity, increasing future fire risk. Alternatively, if the first water year is cool and moist, native vegetation can re-establish before invasive species gain a foothold. Deep-rooted shrubs and resprouting chaparral species rely on early moisture to rebuild carbohydrate reserves and anchor soils. Moderate storm intensity promotes infiltration rather than runoff, reducing erosion. When temperatures remain seasonable, evapotranspiration stays manageable, allowing seedlings to survive long enough to develop root systems.
However, the 2026 winter was neither of these scenarios. Instead, it was a record-hot year with well-above-average precipitation. When comparing winter temperatures with water-year-to-date rainfall, 2026 stands in a league of its own for heat and precipitation. Its closest contender, 1980, was three degrees cooler and 10 inches wetter. Another year, 2015, saw similar temperatures but just half the observed precipitation.
A scatter plot comparing winter temperatures and winter precipitation. Every other winter that saw similar rainfall as 2026 was, on average, at least 4 degrees cooler.
One of the most significant issues has been the frequency of 80°F+ afternoons during the season. The 2026 winter witnessed a record-breaking 28 afternoons above that threshold, beating the previous record of 25 such afternoons set in 2018. Even worse, these warm days have been evenly spread throughout the entire season, preventing any prolonged cool, wet period. Of the four storm series that impacted the park during the winter, none of them lasted more than 2 weeks before hot, dry weather returned.
The season ended with a bang, with the first-ever extreme heat day during the winter season on February 27, 2026 when high temperatures reached 95°F.
Now, a major heatwave is bearing down on the canyon in what is likely to be the hottest March on record in the area.
