Joshua trees scorched during California shutdown

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. Fire retardant was dropped to help extinguish the Black Rock fire, covering many plants, including this Beavertail cactus.

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. 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. One of many damaged Joshua trees that dot the landscape in the Black Rock fire burn scar.

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.

The firefighter estimates 15 to 30% of the trees damaged in the Black Rock fire will resprout, growing new stems from their root systems. It’s a chance at new life, but many don’t survive. Jackrabbits or other critters that need the water encased in the plant often gobble them up. A good way to protect them is fairly basic: Put up protective cages. It’s possible there will be little or no active restoration. “Park leadership determined that the scale and impacts of the fire did not warrant a large-scale restoration effort,” Peace said in a statement, adding that the park service must balance priorities.

Taking no action is under serious consideration, the firefighter said. In that case, sources said, most new Joshua tree growth would come from seeds brought into the burn scar by seed dispersers like antelope squirrels. Joshua trees grown from seed can take 50 to 70 years to be able to reproduce. Brendan Cummings, conservation director for the Center for Biological Diversity, walks through ashen terrain in the burn scar. Cummings of the Center for Biological Diversity, which petitioned to list the Joshua tree under the California Endangered Species Act, said a hands-off approach generally would not bode well for the iconic trees. But what he described as underfunding of the park service — on top of a proposed $1 billion budget cut— could force difficult choices. “In the era of climate change, Joshua trees won’t survive in Joshua Tree National Park absent active management,” Cummings said. That includes replanting them in burn areas and maybe watering them, he said. Doing what’s needed “to ensure the species has the best chance of surviving the difficult decades ahead should be (officials’) No. 1 priority,” he said, given that the plant is inscribed into the name of the park. “But they’re also under mandates to operate campgrounds and keep the roads functional and things of that sort.” In her statement, Peace said that active management of the trees is important for their persistence, “which is why the superintendent balances those [resource management] priorities.”

The trees — which are actually succulents — are protected by a special state conservation law and are candidates for California’s threatened species list. Baby Joshua trees, along with other plants commonly found in Joshua Tree National Park, are growing in an open-air nursery at the Mojave Desert Land Trust. The conservation nonprofit plans to transfer the plants to the park next fall, where they’ll be used to restore damaged areas. Environmentalists see fire as an existential threat to the trees. Blazes were once rare in the Mojave Desert, but have become increasingly common amid hotter, drier conditions and more extreme swings in precipitation. Invasive species like red brome and Mediterranean split grass are also driving the uptick.

Walking to the recently burned area, Cummings pointed to a young Joshua tree choked with dry grass. “The grass can carry the fire right up to the tree,” he said. Thirty years ago, the earth around the tree would have been mostly bare.

It’s not all doom and gloom. The recent fire could have been much bigger and more ferocious. It’s still uncertain how many of the trees it scorched will perish. Green leaves are visible on the pineapple-like crowns of many of them, though plant experts said that doesn’t mean they’ll make it. And not far from the park, an army of trees is being grown as a sort of insurance policy for such calamities. In June, the Mojave Desert Land Trust, a conservation nonprofit, partnered with Joshua Tree to grow more than 3,000 plants of 29 common species — including hundreds of Joshua trees — from seeds gathered in the park. The plan is to transfer them to the park next fall.