Joshua trees scorched during shutdown

In ‘nightmare scenario,’ fire wipes out hundreds of park’s namesake yuccas

- By Lila Seidman

GINA FERAZZI Los Angeles Times ONE OF MANY damaged Joshua trees dot Joshua Tree National Park after a 72-acre fire in October.

One day after the government shutdown ended, a ranger ambled down a trail in Joshua Tree National Park, bathed in golden light.

It was her first day back, and she had just walked through a sea of scorched Joshua trees rising from blackened earth, their dagger-like leaves bleached an unhealthy yellow.

It was one of the spots in the park where the trees are supposed to be able to live, even 100 years from now, the ranger said, when most places in the park will not be suitable for Joshua trees.

“So to see those ones that should be the parents of the next generation ...” she said, her voice trailing off. She spoke anonymously for fear of retaliation.

This was “a nightmare scenario,” said a firefighter with the park, who also spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. During the last government shutdown six years ago, the revelation that vandals appeared to have chopped down a few of the Dr. Seuss-esque trees grabbed national headlines. In this instance, the firefighter estimates more than a thousand trees were torched. Brendan Cummings, conservation director for the Center for Biological Diversity, also surveyed the plants in the burn zone and came up with a similar estimate.

The area, not far from Black Rock Campground, is one of the park’s densest Joshua tree woodlands. Perched at a higher elevation, it’s considered a climate refuge for the iconic trees, which are threatened by warming, drying conditions lower down.

According to the firefighter, the fire began last month when a park visitor lit his toilet paper on fire. Firefighters halted it quickly at 72 acres, but many trees had already been seared.