MOJAVE NATIONAL PRESERVE (AP) – Firefighters aided by rain fought to contain a massive blaze that swept through the California desert into Nevada and could threaten the region’s famous spiky Joshua trees.
The York Fire that erupted last Friday was California’s largest wildfire this year. As of Tuesday night it had burned through more than 323.7 square kilometres (km2) of land but showed little growth during the day and was 23 per cent contained, fire officials said.
Humid monsoonal weather conditions on Tuesday afternoon brought brief but heavy rain, especially on the south end of the fire, and kept its spread to a minimum, fire officials said.
However, the 400 or so firefighters battling the blaze had to balance their efforts with concerns about disrupting the fragile ecosystem in California’s Mojave National Preserve.
Crews used a light hand on the land, clearing and carving fire lines without the use of bulldozers in order to reduce the impact in the ecologically-sensitive region, which is home to some 200 rare plants.
“You bring a bunch of bulldozers in there, you may or may not stop the fire, but you’ll put a scar on the landscape that’ll last generations,” said Assistant Chief for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection Tim Chavez,.
The blaze erupted near the remote Caruthers Canyon area of the vast wildland preserve, crossed the state line into Nevada last Sunday and sent smoke further east into the Las Vegas Valley.
The fire started on private lands within the preserve, but the cause remains under investigation.
Less than three per cent of the land in the 6,475km2 preserve is privately owned.
