I took this photo two years ago in the Mid-Hills Campground in the Mojave National Preserve.
This week, the campground — and more importantly, the lush pinyon-juniper forest that surrounded it — was damaged by fire. I don’t yet know the extent of the damage.
The book demands I head down there in a few weeks, to see what there is to report. Local anti-environmentalists are already complaining that the Park Service is to blame, for removing cattle from the park. As if cattle weren’t to large degree responsible for the influx of invasive grasses that fed this fire. As if the Park Service was responsible for the hundred-year rain this winter, that fed the grasses.
I console myself that the Joshua trees at Cima Dome, the centerpiece of my book, weren’t hit. But fire season isn’t over yet.
Fire season hasn’t even started yet. This could get ugly.
