Humid monsoonal weather conditions 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.
MOJAVE NATIONAL PRESERVE, Calif. — Firefighters aided by rain fought to contain a massive blaze that swept through the California desert into Nevada and is California’s largest wildfire this year. As of early Wednesday it had burned through more than 128 square miles of land and was 30% contained, fire officials said.
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. The fire started on private lands within the preserve, but the cause remains under investigation. Less than 3% of the land in the 2,500-square mile preserve is privately owned.
Some of the preserve’s plants can take centuries to recover from destruction. The pinyon-juniper woodlands alone could take roughly 200 to 300 years to return, while the blackbrush scrub and Joshua trees — which grow only in the Mojave Desert — are unlikely to regrow after this catastrophic blaze, said Ileene Anderson, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity.
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