LOS ANGELES — About 75 miles northwest of San Diego, beyond the view of much of the mainland, the rugged and remote Navy outpost of San Clemente Island remains a mystery to most Californians.
For nine decades, San Clemente Island, the southernmost of the eight Channel Islands, has been owned by the Navy and is largely inaccessible to civilians. Throughout this time the volcanic isle’s sprawling shoreline and rolling hills have served as a crucial military training ground where U.S. troops detonate grenades and fire heavy artillery. It’s also the Navy’s last live-firing range for ship-to-shore bombardments.
So, in late July, few noticed when a catastrophic wildfire swept over more than 13,000 acres of the island outpost. Between July 24 and July 30, the blaze scorched more than a third of the island, damaging more than nine miles of high-voltage power lines, including more than 160 utility lines and a transformer, according to Navy documents.
The fire also swept through parts of the island that have rare habitats for sensitive plant and animal species found nowhere else, such as the endangered San Clemente loggerhead shrike, a carnivorous songbird.
The conflagration left the southern end of the island charred, and numerous Navy buildings without power.
It is expected to take at least a year to restore electricity to those facilities. In the meantime, the Navy will rely on diesel-powered backup generators to maintain…
