Almost every inch of Chino Hills State Park was torched in last November’s Freeway Complex Fire, but nature’s resilience is again on display: the park is covered with riotous growth.

That isn’t all good news. Much of the growth is in the form of non-native weeds, which hog nutrients and crowd out the native plants the park is meant to preserve.

And only a year after some 90 percent of the park was burned, it is once again primed for ignition.

“Our biggest concern is repeated fire,” said Ken Kietzer, a district environmental scientist for State Parks who is monitoring the park’s recovery. “There is enough fuel that, should a spark fly in that park, it could burn again.”

The possibility that the park will be hit by fire again worries ecologists. Although Southern California’s drought-tolerant native plants are adapted to periodic wildfire, they can disappear if fires come too frequently.

“That is really a terrifying thought, because as these other native species are just on the verge of recovery, if they get hit again by fire, they’re not coming back,” Kietzer said.

But the news isn’t all bad, either. Kietzer said park scientists are seeing regrowth of rare black walnut trees, which in some cases are sprouting from burned-out stumps.

Oaks are coming back, too, along with coastal sage scrub, Orange County’s best known native plant community.

Endangered least Bell’s vireos, meanwhile, have been “tenacious,” Kietzer said. Although their preferred streamside vegetation was burned, the birds were stubbornly nesting in non-native mustard — not their usual choice.

There were also signs that cactus wrens and California gnatcatchers were returning to the park, although much of their habitat is skeletal.

Deer and bobcats have come back, and, most likely, mountain lions, he said; in the spring, wildflowers sprang up, especially those that take advantage of burned landscape and are known as fire-followers.

“We’ll see some of that again, I think, this spring,” Kietzer said. “If we do get winter rains that are predicted, that will be nice for park visitors.”

Bottom line, he said: “We’re seeing recovery, but there are threats there.”

Read O.C. Register package on Freeway Complex Fire anniversary.

(Register photo of springtime resprouting of charred black willow at Chino Hills State Park by Bruce Chambers.)

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