Taking Root: Students Lead Fire-Resilient Restoration

A project to restore oak trees near Westmont has taken root with about 60 newly planted, native coast live oaks. Each has sprouted to more than three feet in height where Montecito Fire removed dead and dying eucalyptus trees in the summer of 2023.

Project manager Laura Drake Schultheis, assistant professor of biology, described the site along Westmont Creek between the Las Barrancas faculty homes and Carr Field as a high‑risk fire zone. After fire officials began removing the eucalyptus, she applied for a grant and received full funding from the Regional Wildfire Mitigation Program Landscape Domain.

Neighbors, Santa Barbara County fire officials and college staff have all supported the effort. Many of them remember the 2008 Tea Fire, which spread quickly through the eucalyptus‑lined creek bed.

Students dug holes and learned from an arborist the best ways to protect oak seedlings and give them the greatest chance of success. Two years later, students in Schultheis’ Plant Classification and Biodiversity class conducted a thorough tree‑monitoring session, measuring height, crown diameter and overall health.

“Anytime you can plant an oak, you create another potential way to stop a spreading fire,” Schultheis says. “Adult oak trees will start dropping acorns, and we’ll see more oaks sprouting up and filling in the gaps. It helps create microhabitats, shady areas that nurture more biodiversity, as a native oak woodland begins to grow.

“When you introduce plant communities, the insects come, the pollinators come, the herbivores come, and the study of ecology lets us explore these connections.”