In the Mojave Desert, Fire

The Mojave desert is a harsh place. Toughness is needed for survival. But adaptation to environmental conditions is not adaptation to any condition. Fire, for one, can wipe out the adapted vegetation, especially when facilitated by invasive grasses. A wet year generates a large growth of grasses, fires in the following summer can be very large and damaging. In the Mojave National Preserve, the Cima Dome fire in 2020 burned 43,000 acres and the York fire burned 73,000 acrea in 2023.

The fires are patchy; some areas are unburned. Many trees don’t survive; some resprout. Rodents feed on new vegetation; rainfall determines survival. A century of cattle grazing and prior long years of human occupation favored Joshua Tree growth; current conditions may not.