Wildfires threaten iconic Joshua trees

California’s largest wildfire is threatening iconic Joshua trees in the Mojave National Preserve.

The York fire started Friday and has expanded to burn more than 82,000 acres as of Wednesday morning, according to fire officials.

The fire, about 60 miles south of Las Vegas, straddles the California-Nevada border and is already the largest in California so far this year. It is 23 percent contained as firefighters contend with searing temperatures and high winds.

The winds have spawned “fire whirls,” fire and smoke tornados that rarely occur in wildfires. Erratic winds have also sent columns of fire more than 20 feet into the air and have allowed the blaze to spread more easily.

Vegetation in the region — including juniper bush, Joshua trees and other desert-hardened brush — is extremely dry in the summer and ripe for flame, according to fire officials. More than 400 fire personnel have been deployed to the area.

Very few people live in the region surrounding the fire in the middle of the Mojave Desert, but much of the fire is burning the eastern parts of the region in Southern California. The preserve protects endangered desert tortoises, the famous Joshua trees and more than 200 other rare plants.

This has forced firefighters to use special techniques to quell the flames that limit impact on the environment. “Light hand on the land” procedures include not using bulldozers to create fire breaks, a usually common tactic.

“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 Tim Chavez, an assistant chief for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The fire started on private land within the preserve, but a cause is currently unknown.

The delicate desert environment could take decades or even a century to fully recover from a large-scale wildfire as vegetation grows extremely slowly due to the hostile environment. Joshua trees, considered a vulnerable species, can take 60 years to mature and only grow in the Mojave Desert.

“You don’t disturb any more soil than you absolutely have to; you don’t cut trees unless they absolutely have to come down,” Chavez said.

There are extra precautions when working in delicate environments, he said. “It’s not just going out there and throwing everything we’ve got at it.”

The fire has also entered Avi Kwa Ame National Monument — one of the newest national monuments in the country — in southern Nevada. The monument protects land considered sacred by local Southern Paiute Native Americans. It is unknown exactly how much land in the monument has burned.

Weather in the area is expected to be hot and sunny, with highs around 100 degrees in the days to come. Nearby Las Vegas had the hottest July on record last month, with an average temperature of 97 degrees.

The region is currently in monsoon season, where brief heavy storms and flash floods are not uncommon, but no rain is currently forecasted. Heavy rain slowed fire growth at the southern end of the blaze Tuesday.