San Marcos Trails Damaged In Cocos Fire Reopened

By Alison St John / Reporter

Published March 9, 2015 at 3:00 AM PDT

This story was published more than 9 years ago.

The hills above San Marcos, showing the trails on the areas burned by last years' Cocos fire, March 6 2015.

San Marcos Trails Damaged In Cocos Fire Reopened

The city of San Marcos has reopened some of the trails running through hillsides burned by last year’s Cocos fire. The refurbished trails are part of an ambitious plan for the hills of North County.

Over the weekend, San Marcos celebrated the reopening of eight miles of trails that were damaged during the Cocos fire last May.

Ron Vinluan, a San Marcos park ranger, said much of the damage to the trails in the hills between San Marcos and the community of San Elijo Hills was caused by bulldozers’ efforts to suppress the flames.

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In the last few months, workers have laid down decomposed granite, replaced wooden fences burned by the fires and planted oak saplings where chaparral was destroyed.

A hillside behind Cal State San Marcos, showing how vegetation is returning 10 months after the 2014 Cocos fire, March 5, 2015.

The hills are showing patches of green where vegetation is growing back in areas of blackened chaparral, but the scars of the fire are still very visible. The chaparral should eventually grow back stronger than it was before the fire, Vinluan said.

The restored trails are just part of a Master Plan to build 104 miles of trails through the canyons and hills of San Marcos, Vinluan said.

“The whole idea for the county is to have our cities interconnected via trail,” he said.

So far, San Marcos has built 64 miles of trails, which will eventually link with walking and biking trails in Vista and Escondido.

Alison St John

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.