![]() ![]() He pulled back the small band of 16 firefighters and they bedded down for the night.īy noon the next day, the fire had ballooned to 15,000 acres. But with lightning fires erupting all over California, Sohr’s initial requests for additional support went unfilled. A little more help arrived Saturday evening. The fire chewed into wilderness areas that firefighters couldn’t reach. The summer monsoon season, which normally delivers about half the area’s rainfall, had been a bust. The temperature was in the mid-90s - hot for the dome’s 5,000-foot elevation. Sohr and a handful of engine crews reached the source of smoke rising above Cima Dome that Saturday afternoon, winds were pushing the roughly 70-acre blaze in all directions. In 2005, roughly 1 million acres of the Mojave burned, including part of the preserve to the southeast of Cima Dome. Geological Survey research ecologist who has studied the forest. “That stand with that many big trees was developing for thousands of years,” said Todd Esque, a U.S. ![]() But they are doomed, and the 43,273 acres of the Dome fire are forever transformed. In the evening light, their leaves, bleached with scorch, take on an eerie beauty. Most of the charred trees are still standing. Smoke rose from the top of Cima Dome, marking the start of a wildfire that would ravage the heart of one of the world’s largest Joshua tree forests.Ī drive down Cima Road that only weeks ago was a trip through a magical landscape is now a tour of the world’s biggest Joshua tree graveyard. The first day of California’s lightning siege, thunderstorms rolled across the Mojave National Preserve, slicing the afternoon sky with dry strikes. ![]()
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