Scores of Joshua trees burned during shutdown

[Joshua Tree, from A1] trees, which are threatened by warming, drying conditions lower down.

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THE TOP OF a damaged Joshua tree is illuminated by the setting sun amid terrain scarred by October's 72-acre Black Rock wildfire.

(Photographs by GINA FERAZZI Los Angeles Times)

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.

It was a “totally avoidable tragedy,” he said. Rangers who could have provided important education about fire safety were not working as a result of the shutdown, he said.

Elizabeth Peace, a spokesperson for the Department of the Interior, said the cause of the fire remains under investigation.

Looking forward, “normally we would try and... restore that critical habitat that we've lost,” the firefighter said. But even with the government reopened, he said operations remain hobbled by staff losses that disproportionately affect conservation and restoration, including saving Joshua trees and desert tortoises. “So we're going to have to do less. We can't do as much to save the trees.”

The park's resources division was once 30-strong, he said, and is now down to six full-time and one part-time employees. About a third of the team has left since Trump took the White House for the second time, amid pressured retirements that affected the whole park service, he said.

The Interior's Peace said that the resources team never consisted of 30 full-time staffers, and that contractors also help get the work done.

According to the National Parks Conservation Assn., the park service has lost nearly a quarter of its permanent staff since January. The Trump administration believes the federal workforce had grown too large.