El Niño storms blanket High Desert with snow

Snow in Pioneertown

Joe Galli
KESQ News Channel 3, Palm Springs

PIONEERTOWN, Calif. - People in some parts of the High Desert woke up to a couple inches of snow on the ground.

The majority of the snow at lower elevations melted on away by the late afternoon, but that didn't stop some families from enjoying the fresh powder.

"I love the snow, we woke up this morning the whole place was blanketed, and it was enough snow to have my son stay home from school so we have been sledding all day," said Jon Linn.

KESQ talked with some residents who lost homes a few years back in the Sawtooth Fire. That blaze took out homes in Pioneertown and burned 70,000 acres of wilderness. These home owners told us they are always happy to see any moisture in the area to try to keep the bush from drying up during the drought.

"The snow only comes every so many years, and the Sawtooth Fire was 2007 (sic), two or three years after that we had 2 to 3 feet of snowfall, today it was like only an inch and it burned off right away, but it's still nice," said Rex Davis who rebuilt his home after the Sawtooth Fire.

If you're planning on heading up to even higher elevations to have some fun on the slopes this would be a good time to do it. Places like Big Bear got 36 inches of snow in some places.

Air pollution linked to increased fire threat

Fire-fueling plants thrive on nitrogen-enriched soil

Air pollution may indirectly contribute to the increase of wildfires in the desert. Fire-stoking weeds now thrive in the desert soil, enhanced by the nitrogen in the soil deposited by air pollution. (Jay Calderon, Desert Sun file photo)

Keith Matheny
The Desert Sun

Air pollution from engine exhaust — largely carried here from Los Angeles by the wind — isn't just harming people's health. It's also pushing native plant species toward extinction in and around the Coachella Valley, and indirectly contributing to increased wildfires in the desert.

Edith Allen, a University of California, Riverside botany professor, has spent years working with a team studying the impacts of engine exhaust pollution on native and invasive plant species in parts of Riverside and San Bernardino counties, including the Coachella Valley.

The research has found that car exhaust is inadvertently making plant fertilizer — nitrates, a form of the naturally occurring nitrogen that plants can readily use for food, Allen said.

The nitrates drop out of the atmosphere and onto the soil, where rain allows plants to absorb it through their roots, Allen said.

“Up to a point it's a good thing,” she said. “But we also know that weeds take up nitrogen. They're better at taking it up than crop plants or wildland plants.”

The nitrogen is naturally flushed away over time in areas where it rains frequently, Allen said. But in the desert, with only a handful of rainy days in a year, the nitrogen is able to accumulate, she said.

Invasive weeds were accidentally introduced to the region through movement of people, crop seeds and livestock over centuries, Allen said.

“In the desert, they are from the dry regions of Europe and North Africa,” Allen said.

Exhaust-related air pollution is helping the invasive weeds to flourish.

“Because they take up nitrogen more rapidly and grow more rapidly, they produce more seeds,” Allen said. “They are more competitive than the native plants and they replace the native plants.

“Areas that once were covered with native vegetation — including areas of the Coachella Valley — are covered with with invasive plants from the Mediterranean.”

Change in fire cycle

In the western valley and areas in and around Joshua Tree National Park, the plants thriving on the exhaust-provided nitrates are often invasive grasses.

“Those exotic grasses are the ones that are effecting the fire ecology in the park,” said Joe Zarki, a longtime ranger at Joshua Tree.

“They create carpets out in the desert where previously we had a lot of open, bare ground. When they die every year, they create fuel.”

It's leading to wildfires that are more intense and happen more often, experts said.

The desert burned “very infrequently” over hundreds of thousands of years, Allen said. But the cycle changed around the mid-1980s, she said, as air pollution worsened in the Los Angeles area and moved into the region.

“Now what we see is some areas of the desert burning whenever there is a wet year,” she said.

“There are areas that have burned three times since the 1980s. That's not part of our natural fire cycle. There's something different going on.”

The most severe of the more frequent desert fires was the Sawtooth-Millard fire in July 2006.

The lightning-started fires combined to burn more than 85,000 acres in the Morongo Basin near Yucca Valley and in the San Gorgonio Wilderness north of Cabazon. They led to a man's death, cost more than $21 million to fight and nearly $12 million in property damage.

In July 2005, the Mojave National Preserve, near the old mining town of Kelso north of Twentynine Palms, had its largest wildfire in modern history, a lightning-started blaze that burned more than 70,000 acres.

Cameron Barrows, a research ecologist at the UC Riverside Center for Conservation Biology, sees a clear connection between engine exhaust pollution and the more intense, more frequent wildfires.

“You end up with very high concentrations of nitrogen from the Banning Pass to Snow Creek and the Desert Hot Springs area, and more towards Joshua Tree” National Park, he said.

“Not surprisingly, that's where most of our wildfires have been.”

A vicious cycle

The pollution-created nitrogen in soils, the invasive grasses and wildfires all create a vicious cycle that works against native desert species — Joshua trees, junipers, pinyon pines, chaparral, creosote bush and more.

“Once the fires go through, the desert vegetation is not adapted to fire,” Allen said.

“It takes a long time to recover, and in fact it does not recover. What it turns into is a greater abundance of invasive grasses.”

Zarki notices the trend at Joshua Tree National Park.

“We're seeing a type conversion from older, more mature type plants to exotic grasses and annual wildflowers,” he said.

“There are unknown ecological consequences to that. If you're a plant or animal that's best adapted to junipers and pinyon pines, and they're getting burned up and not getting a chance to re-establish themselves, there is a significant impact.”

The phenomenon isn't isolated to the Coachella Valley and high desert.

“It's an international problem,” said Andrzej Bytnerowicz a senior scientist studying air pollution with the U.S. Forest Service's Southwest Research Station in Riverside.

“We have huge problems in China, for instance, related to air pollution acting as plant fertilizer.

“I think we have to be much better in publicizing what we know. Ozone has been discussed for three, four, five decades. But nitrogen deposition, it's been maybe talked about for 10 years.”

Though the long-term ramifications of the pollution's effect on desert plant life look dire, Allen said she remains hopeful that the situation will turn around.

“Now that we have a federal administration in Washington that is willing to allow California to take the lead, I think air pollution issues are going to get better,” she said. “I think the air is going to get cleaner and some of these issues about invasive grasses and fire are going to get better.”

Still calling 'Action!' in Pioneertown

In 1945, when Hollywood was grinding out Westerns on a regular basis, Roy Rogers led a band of cohorts and founded the town as a live-in movie set

Judith Salkin
The Desert Sun

The U.S. Post Office in Pioneertown is the most photographed post office in the country according to a plaque on a historical marker outside the building. (Crystal Chatham, The Desert Sun)

You don't have to go to Los Angeles to discover a bit of Hollywood history.

Just take the drive up Highway 62, make a left at the Water Canyon Coffee Co. and head up the road to Pioneertown.

In 1945, when Hollywood was grinding out Westerns on a regular basis, Roy Rogers led a band of cohorts that included actors Dick Curtis and Russell Hayden, the Sons of the Pioneers (Roy's backup band), Bud Abbott (of Abbott and Costello) and gossip columnist Louella Parsons, and founded the town as a live-in movie set.

Back then, Pioneertown boasted a post office (still in use and according to a historical marker, the most photographed U.S. Post Office in the country), a cantina, general store and motel, where cast and crew would hunker down during shoots.

According to the Pioneertown Web site, it was almost called “Rogersville” in honor of the famed cowboy.

“But after some spirited discussion we named it Pioneertown in honor of The Sons of the Pioneers,” wrote Hayden, who died in Palm Springs in 1981.

“That way, no one man was getting top billing.”

Today, the town is a rustic reminder of gentler days — and of the primeval forces Mother Nature can unleash.

Two years ago, the Sawtooth fire ravaged the foothills behind Yucca Valley. Miraculously, Pioneertown survived. But there's much more to see than nature renewing herself in this high desert community.

Shacking up

Ernest “Ernie” Kester, who along with his wife Carol owned the Pioneertown Motel for a number of years, is a collector of all things Pioneertown.

If you find him on the streets (he's one of the members of the Pioneertown Posse that performs gunfights) he can tell you just about anything you want to know about the town.

“All the old stars — Gene Autry, Duncan Reynaldo (The Cisco Kid), Russell Haney, Clayton Moore — they all worked up here,” he said.

If you're looking for a place to stay while exploring the area, there's the Pioneertown Lodge and Stable, owned by Bill and Peggy McKinley.

“Roy's (Rogers) was number 10 and room 9 was the club room where they all got together after a day of shooting,” Peggy McKinley said.

The McKinleys have been making some changes, including adding a stable and a pavilion for special events. This weekend, the lodge is holding its first kids' riding camp, complete with barbecue and Sunday brunch.

Pappy and Harriet's

Today's Pioneertown is a charming place. You can wander around Mane Street, see a staged gunfight, head north to Pipes Canyon, or stop in at Pappy and Harriet's Pioneertown Palace for a long neck and live music.

According to its Web site, Pappy's began as a one-pump gas station with a dual purpose. The facade was used as a set for westerns well into the 1950s. In 1972, Harriet's mother, Francis Aleba, and her husband, John, purchased the building and opened “Cantina,” a biker bar that became a destination for bikers traveling to Big Bear and Las Vegas.

In 1982, Harriet and her husband, Claude “Pappy” Allen, opened “Pappy & Harriet's Pioneertown Palace,” served Tex-Mex and brought in live music.

More than 25 years later, Pappy's is still the place to be for good grub and entertainment.

Regular performers include The Thrift Store All-Stars, Ritmo Loco and Ted Quinn.

And you never know who's going to show up on stage — Eric Burdon, Leon Russell, Shooter Jennings, Lucinda Williams, Johnette Napolitano (of Concrete Blonde) and even Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant.

Experts unsure how much burn-area recovery to expect from this winter's rains

By GAIL WESSON
The Press-Enterprise




2007/The Press-Enterprise
Wildlands Conservancy Ranger Christopher Siddall waters transplanted yuccas at the Pioneertown Mountains Preserve, which was damaged in the 2006 Sawtooth Complex Fire.

The winter rains have greened up hillsides and produced a bountiful crop of wildflowers in parts of the Inland area, but scientists and wild land managers say it's still too soon to gauge how this rain may affect recovery from wildfires that burned in drought years.

Native plants may compete with non-native invasive plants in rebirth, but it may take several years or longer to tell what will happen in a landscape, and sometimes the land may burn in another wildfire as in parts of San Diego County hit in 2003 and in 2007.

Despite a lack of rain last year, in the 2006 Esperanza Fire burn area, "There were a lot of native plants that came up," said Jan Beyers, U.S. Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station plant ecologist in Riverside.

Researchers will return to the field this month to see the effects of the fall into winter rains as part of a research project looking at recovery in the fire area where some areas burned a couple years ago, or as long as almost 80 years ago, Beyers said.

That research, which continues into next year, is looking at Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service lands.

The Esperanza Fire, which began Oct. 26, 2006, burned 43,000 acres in the San Jacinto Mountains. Raymond Lee Oyler is charged with arson and murder in connection with the fire that killed five U.S. Forest Service firefighters.

Last year, researchers surveyed fire intensity in the area and brought back soil samples, Beyers said. In the fire lab greenhouse in Riverside, native plants and some non-natives like brome, an annual grass, have sprouted.

Last week, Beyer, other scientists and academicians shared their work at a Natural Resources Coordinating Conference that focused on preparation, impacts and recovery aspects of fire in California at the UC Riverside Palm Desert Graduate Center. Many have ties to Cooperative Extension, the educational arm of the university.

They took field trips to see burn areas in the San Jacinto Mountains, the Big Morongo Canyon Preserve, blackened in the 2005 high desert Paradise fire, and Pioneertown Mountains Preserve, devastated in the 2006 Sawtooth Complex Fire.

April Sall, who manages the Pioneertown preserve for the Wildlands Conservancy, said there were some beneficial rains, but it will take some time before they will see the mix of native and invasive plants. "Definitely the next few months will give us an indication of what to expect," she said.

Some charred yuccas have resprouted and are up to 18 inches tall, but slower-growing resprouted Joshua trees are 6- to 8-inches-tall and less than half the Joshua trees have resprouted, she said. Rain is critical in the next few years if pinyon are to come back.

Some 400 transplanted Mojave yuccas, Joshua trees and native cactus are being nurtured near the preserve visitor center.

"It will probably be a decade or two before we see what is going to come back," she said. To give the preserve a chance to recover, it is closed to the public but may open for a few programs to be announced on the conservancy's Web site this spring.

Near Hemet, Metropolitan Water District's Diamond Valley Lake is the northern open-space anchor of the Southwest Riverside County Multispecies Reserve, which extends south to Lake Skinner near Murrieta.

In 1993, the Winchester Fire swept across 25,000 acres and destroyed 29 homes from the north side of the reservoir area south through what was then sparsely populated hills.

Untouched by fires, the chaparral vegetation gradually came back. "Yet it still took 10 years before you had your first pair of (California) gnatcatchers" nesting in the burn area, said biologist Bill Wagner, a consultant to Metropolitan.

The gnatcatcher is a federally protected songbird that nests in brittlebush, buckwheat and California sage shrubs that grow in the reservoir area.

FEMA reimburses CDF for fire costs

The Sawtooth fire as seen from a hill in Yucca Valley. The road below is Highway 62. Photo by Westerberg

Lauren McSherry, Staff Writer
San Bernardino Sun

A year and a half after the Sawtooth Fire burned in the desert west of Yucca Valley, the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced Wednesday it is granting more than $8.8million to reimburse the state forestry agency for costs incurred fighting the wildfire.

The money will be given to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection through the Fire Management Grant Assistance Program.

Under the program, FEMA covers 75 percent of the cost of fighting fires on public and private land that could constitute a major disaster. The state is left to make up the remaining 25 percent.

The Sawtooth Fire started on July 9, 2006, and was not contained until July 18. It swept across about 61,700 acres and threatened houses in Pioneertown, Yucca Valley and parts of the Morongo Basin.

Daniel Berlant, spokesman for the CDF in Sacramento, declined to comment on how the money would be spent, but said it is routine to apply for the grant anytime there is an evacuation in conjunction with a major wildland fire.

Kelly Hudson, a FEMA spokeswoman, said the money is typically used to restore an agency's budget after local firefighters and other groups that helped battle the fire are paid.

She said the state agency had about a year to submit the application, which requires thorough documentation of expenses.

"It's not that the locals went unpaid," Hudson said. "They were paid. We're reimbursing the state agency."

The money could go toward the cost of field camps, the repair and replacement of equipment, tools, materials and supplies as well as mobilization and demobilization activities, according to FEMA.

Money for the grant program is allocated from the President's Disaster Relief Fund.

"FEMA is committed to assisting firefighters in getting them the critical resources they need to respond quickly and effectively to the unpredictability of wildfires," said FEMA Region IX Administrator Nancy Ward in a statement.

Blazes leaving scars on parks

By JENNIFER BOWLES
The Press-Enterprise



Pipes Canyon after the Sawtooth fire. Some of the pinyon-pines here were over 1,200 years old. Nearly all were killed. The Joshua trees were hundreds of years old.

More than four years after the Old Fire swept through the San Bernardino Mountains, a major campground and trail at a state park remain closed; sixteen months after the Sawtooth Complex Fire raged across the desert near Yucca Valley, a popular hiking and equestrian preserve has yet to re-open.

And another state park, nestled against the foothills of the San Jacinto Mountains, was badly damaged by last year's Esperanza Fire before the public even got a chance to see the scenic landscape that was awaiting groundwater contamination cleanup.

And more recently, the Slide and two Butler fires near Fawnskin and Running Springs damaged campgrounds and hiking trails, including a five-mile segment of the Pacific Crest Trail that will remain closed until the spring when debris and burned trees will be removed, said Paul Bennett, a recreational officer with the forest's mountaintop district.

Fires that have marched across the desert and mountains in recent years have severely scarred popular Inland recreation areas, often requiring costly and lengthy recoveries. Since the 2003 Old Fire, more than 100,000 acres of parkland, forest and preserves have been damaged, prompting at least $5.1 million in repairs.

At Silverwood Lake State Recreation Area alone, the damage toll was $3 million from the 2003 Old Fire and the floods that followed. Bridges, restrooms, sewer lines, roads, guardrails, a fishing dock, the Pacific Crest Trial and other paths were damaged, and major construction projects continue today.

Officials at Mojave National Preserve in northeastern San Bernardino County spent $1.1 million fixing gravel roads that were damaged by floods that followed the Hackberry Complex Fire, which burned for six days in June 2005 and swallowed more than 70,000 acres in the preserve, said Larry Whalon, the park's deputy superintendent.

At Pipes Canyon Preserve east of Pioneertown, the damage was more physical than financial. The Sawtooth Fire so badly charred pinyon pines, some dating back more than 1,000 years, that they may not sprout new life. And the junipers and Joshua trees may not fare much better.

A graveyard of hundreds if not thousands of blackened Joshua trees, some with their weakened limbs bending downward in a bleak landscape, remind April Sall of what was once a thriving preserve for hikers and equestrians at the crossroads of two ecosystems: the Mojave Desert and the eastern San Bernardino Mountains.

"It was a really neat canyon," said Sall, who manages the preserve owned by the Wildlands Conservancy, a nonprofit in Oak Glen. Sall said she expected a wildfire to some day hit the preserve, but not one that would destroy 90 percent of it.

"We expected the fire to be more patchy and more mosaic, but it was total devastation," she said of the July 2006 fire.

Costly repairs

At Silverwood Lake, crews are working to replace four large bridges that link a three-mile, dirt trail skirting the reservoir for bikers and hikers. The trail has been closed since the Old Fire burned through four years ago. At $697,000, the bridge project is the costliest repair.

"Without this bridge, it doesn't allow for access to some very beautiful parts of the park," said park superintendent Kevin Forrester as he stood by one of the wooden bridges under repair.

The area known as Miller Canyon surrounds an offshoot of the lake and the trail is at the base of steep hills marked by manzanitas, some whose limbs are still blackened. It will probably be another year before the area is reopened.

"The area is very unstable," Forrester said. "We still have a lot of work to do."

He is hoping for some good rains this winter to shore up the hillsides with some vegetation to keep debris from sliding down.

Forrester said it's frustrating to keep closed portions of one the region's few state parks, given the burgeoning population in the area. But, he said, they've done their best as much of the funding trickles in from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Across the lake in Cleghorn Canyon, an equestrian campground has remained closed since 2003, when fast-moving flames severely damaged the camp's bathroom and showers. One benefit of designing a new structure, Forrester said, is that it will be accessible to people with handicaps.

Another state park in Potrero Canyon south of Beaumont will open in the near future once groundwater contamination, a remnant of a now-closed rocket testing facility, is cleaned up. The cleanup was underway before last October's Esperanza Fire burned nearly 90 percent of the Potrero unit of San Jacinto Wildlife Area, said Scott Sewell, wildlife habitat supervisor for the California Department of Fish and Game.

A slice of Old California with its large oaks, creeks and boulder-studded hills, the park's trees and shrubs are recovering with the help of cool, moist weather that drifts in from the coast, Sewell said.

"As an outdoor enthusiast, I really want to see it open for nature walks, birding, or mountain biking, horseback riding, that's the enthusiast in me," Sewell said. As a supervisor, he said, "we want to make sure it's completely safe."

Hard to heal

At the Pipes Canyon Preserve, recently renamed the Pioneertown Mountains Preserve, it's a seven-mile trudge through badly burned areas to get to the 10 percent of the 33,000 acres that escaped the flames.

In a dry creek bed at the head of several hiking and horse trails surrounded by still-charred hillsides, a few orange spikes of Indian paintbrush and the orange-red blooms of a California fuchsia are the few bits of color and natural life that have reemerged.

Like elsewhere, scant rain and strong winds have made it tough for seedlings to take hold, Sall said.

"Mostly we have to let nature take its course," she said, "there's not a lot of active restoration we can do."

The preserve staff already did what active restoration was possible. Crews planted 400 Joshua trees, Mojave yuccas and chollas along roads and by the preserve headquarters so as not to disturb native seed banks in the open land and what might grow back naturally. The trees were transplanted from housing developments in Yucca Valley where it's illegal to chop them down, said Robert Kirschmann, the city's associate planner.

Ranger Christopher Siddall drives around hauling a 500-gallon water tank so he can water the transplants with a hose.

Sall said she hopes winter rains will be enough to spur the re-growth of groundcover so the preserve can reopen in the spring. If not, the preserve may open then for limited use on weekends, she said.

Whalon, at the Mojave National Preserve, said a good dose of winter rain is also needed there to heal the desert, which is easy to scar and hard to heal.

"Winter rain tends not to run off," he said. "The (summer) monsoon rains are fine, but they tend to erode more."

Grim Toll

Sall's eyes nearly tear up and her voice chokes with emotion when talking about the fire's grim toll: dozens of animal carcasses -- jackrabbits, coyotes and others -- that she had to pick up herself. Her ties to the land are deep: her grandmother homesteaded the land in the late 1920s and her father was raised there.

The name was changed to the Pioneertown Mountains Preserve about five months ago after land in and around the town were donated to the Wildlands Conservancy, enlarging the preserve beyond Pipes Canyon, said David Myers, the conservancy's executive director.

"Pioneertown is going through a hard time," Myers said, "so we thought it would be good for the esprit de corps to call it that." Some 55 homes in the Yucca Valley area and Pioneertown, originally built in the 1940s as a movie set for Westerns, were destroyed in the Sawtooth Fire.

It's difficult not to reopen the preserve to the public, Sall said, conceding there has been some pressure from hikers and equestrians wanting to use the trails that wind through streams, desert willows, cottonwoods, and scrub oaks and ascend to Onyx Summit in the San Bernardino Mountains.

"But given the devastation," she said, "it's best to let this place heal a little longer."

Video: Restoration continues at Pioneertown Mountains Preserve following the 2006 Sawtooth Fire.

Evacuations ordered as winds whip Big Bear fire

The blaze that started Friday is being pushed by 15 to 20 mph winds and has burned more than 16,000 acres.

By Ari B. Bloomekatz, Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times

Wildfires that burned into the night Saturday forced several thousand people from their homes in San Bernardino and San Diego counties as winds pushed flames along the edges of Big Bear Lake and the historic town of Julian.

The Big Bear fire, the larger of the two, burned more than 16,000 acres in the San Bernardino National Forest. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in San Bernardino County, saying "there is imminent danger to populated areas, including 6,000 homes and 150 businesses."

At least 500 people were told to evacuate in Fawnskin, near Butler Peak on the north shore of the lake, said U.S. Forest Service spokesman John Miller. And a mandatory evacuation order was also issued for Green Valley Lake, an area with a population of over 500 that touts itself as the "hidden gem" of the San Bernardino Mountains.

The fire, which started Friday about 1:30 p.m. in an area west of Fawnskin, rode 20-mph winds for much of Saturday, scorching brush and timber in mostly steep terrain.

"When you have wind on brush, it's a real flashy fuel that allows the fire to spread real quickly," Miller said. "Right now, this fire is nationally the No. 1 priority. That means if we request a resource, we get it."

More than 600 firefighters attacked the blaze, aided by four helicopters and seven planes, including a DC-10 aircraft that has been dropping fire retardant.

"Typically, when you have a wind-driven event, you can't get ahead of the fire," Miller said in a telephone interview as the DC-10 flew over his head.

Two members of an inmate fire crew were hurt when a tree fell on them, officials said.

In addition to the mandatory evacuations, authorities also recommended evacuations in Lucerne Valley from Crystal Creek Road on the east to High Road on the west and north to the Pitzer Buttes area; from downtown Running Springs east through Arrowbear; and at the Camp Whittle, Big Pine Flat, Ironwood, Hanna Flat, Butler Peak Lookout and Yellow Post campgrounds.

California 18 has been closed from Snow Valley to Big Bear Dam. Some nearby campgrounds and trailheads were also shut as rangers braved the smoky terrain Friday and Saturday morning to warn campers of the danger.

The cause of the fire had not been determined.

Jayme Nordine, owner of the Bear Belly Deli in the 42000 block of Moonridge Road, said area residents were worried about damage from the fire only if they lived near the north shore of Big Bear Lake.

"Big Bear Lake is OK and we're OK because the winds are moving northeast," Nordine said. "We're hoping that the wind doesn't change."

Another wildfire was spreading in San Diego County north and east of Julian, a historic former mining camp and tourist destination about 40 miles northeast of downtown San Diego.

The blaze was ignited about midday and grew quickly, burning about 500 acres by 4:15 p.m., said California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention spokesman Matt Streck.

Mandatory evacuations for about 1,000 households were ordered in the communities of Whispering Pines and Wynola, just outside Julian.

Many of the evacuees were allowed to return to their homes late Saturday, said San Diego sheriff's spokeswoman Jan Caldwell.

"The sky is all orange," said Maryann Sandkuhl, proprietor of Tucker Peak Lodge in Julian.

The lodge remained open late Saturday because it is in the hills above town, but Sandkuhl did have to evacuate her gift shop on Main Street.

"There's not as much smoke anymore," she said. "It's blowing away from town."

Streck said air crews were dropping water and foam on the area while bulldozers cut lines around the blaze.

Officials said they were not yet sure what caused the fire.

Old West lives again

A Fullerton man's ambitions swell as he rebuilds his mock Western village that a wildfire destroyed.



FIRE DAMAGE: Joe Uddo of Fullerton surveys the damage to his Big Horn Ranch in Pioneertown.

By MARLA JO FISHER
The Orange County Register

PIONEERTOWN – It's been a year since Joe Uddo stood looking at the blackened, smoldering remnants of the mock Old West town he'd built to entertain his disabled son, Jason.

Last year, the Sawtooth fire raced through his 20-acre ranch near the Pioneertown movie set, consuming many hours and dollars he'd spent building replicas and collecting vintage Western memorabilia.

The longtime Fullerton resident lost many prized possessions that day at his weekend retreat, which he calls the Big Horn Ranch. So did his neighbors in the close-knit desert community near Joshua Tree National Park.

Twelve months later, a bit of greenery is creeping up from the roots of some of the creosote bushes, twisted black by the fire, which burned more than 61,000 acres, destroyed 58 homes and caused one death.

And Joe Uddo's dream of creating a Western town didn't die. In fact, it went into overdrive.
"It's become a full-time job," said Uddo, 64, a retired food distributor. "When I'm not here, I'm out looking for antiques with my son."

Uddo's 37-year-old son, Jason, has cerebral palsy and attends classes every week at Hope University in Anaheim. When he's not in school or in therapy, the father-and-son pair are expanding their collection.

"He loves it," Uddo said. "He's out here every weekend with me, having a ball."

Uddo, a fan of the Old West, bought the property 15 years ago because of its picturesque location beneath the boulder-strewn Sawtooth Mountains and its proximity to the Pioneertown movie set built in the 1940s and 1950s by film cowboys such as Roy Rogers.

Just down the road, dirt streets still run past mock saloons, a bank, jail and other staples of frontier life. Investors who contracted with movie and TV companies built these to use for Old West shooting locations.

The TV shows "Annie Oakley" and "The Cisco Kid" as well as movies such as "Judge Roy Bean" were filmed here.

Today the hamlet houses a half-dozen businesses, including the Likker Barn, owned by Uddo. He operates it as a souvenir shop occasionally, more to meet people and amuse himself than make money.

When Uddo bought his property, the land included a house and corral. Over the years, he began to add his own structures, including a small saloon, jail and barbershop.

A Santa Fe Railroad caboose joined the collection a dozen years ago. On July 13, 2006, the fire wiped out Uddo's mock town, destroyed his vintage cars, gutted the caboose and burned the front of his house.

"Only the church was left standing," he said

Many neighbors lost their homes that day

Carpenter and artisan Ed Grim, who built many of Uddo's replicas for him, also saw his property destroyed

Since then, the fire has united townspeople, who have held bake sales, garage sales and rummage sales to raise money for financially strapped neighbors. The blackened landscape shows the raw lumber of new homes being built on burned-out sites.

Like the landscape, Uddo's hobby is reborn, but this time his vision has grown.

His new, larger saloon boasts a player piano, talking deer head and tables eerily staffed by lifelike dummies bought from Knott's Berry Farm. The caboose sports four coats of new red paint. He is most excited about the original Knott's Berry Farm fruit stand he bought from the same collector.

Uddo estimates he's spent "hundreds of thousands" of dollars on his hobby.

Pointing to a ramshackle teepee he picked up somewhere, he vowed to build a miniature Indian village where youth groups such as Boy Scouts could come to camp and learn about the Old West.
How long does he plan to go on?

"I started it right after the fire, and I'll probably be doing it for the rest of my life," Uddo said.



NARRATED SLIDE SHOW: Take a tour of Pioneertown with Joe Uddo
http://media2.ocregister.com/slideshow/pioneertown071107/

Video: Record Wildfires Ravage Mojave Desert

The deserts of Pipes Canyon in southern California's Mojave Desert had never had a recorded fire until this year.

But this summer about 90 percent of the canyon was devastated when lightning sparked a raging blaze.

As fires become more frequent in the historically fire-free Mojave, experts say that a variety of factors, including the introduction of alien grasses, might be fanning the flames.

Witness the destruction in Pipes Canyon, and learn about the unprecedented issues that are creating a recipe for disaster in the desert.

Desert Fires' Damage Will Last

It will take centuries for plant life to recover. Many experts say invasive vegetation is largely to blame.

By Janet Wilson, Times Staff Writer
ktla 5 [Los Angeles, CA]


Sawtooth fire as it moves through the Morongo Valley desert landscape.

April Sall stood in the charred remnants of a Joshua tree forest, bark peeling off melted black limbs. Above her, ridges once thick with 1,000-year-old piñon and juniper pines were scorched bedrock and stumps.

More than 90% of the surrounding Pipes Canyon Preserve was consumed in last month's Sawtooth blaze. It was one of half a dozen fast-moving fires this summer that burned 65,000 acres of the Mojave Desert, fueling debate over whether the desert is burning more frequently and explosively as a result of invasive weeds, smog, development and climate change.

"It's heartbreaking to see," said Sall, a biologist who manages the preserve and whose grandmother homesteaded the land a century ago. "We'll never see those piñon or juniper trees again in our lifetimes, nor will our children, nor will their grandchildren. It's a bitter pill…. This land isn't meant to burn."

Many scientists agree, saying the recent blazes offer fresh evidence that deserts across the Southwest are undergoing a profound shift, as ancient native pine, shrubs and cactuses give way to young, highly flammable weeds and grasses.

"Right now we're losing very large pieces of landscape," said Todd Esque, an ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Henderson, Nev., who studies the cause and effect of fires in the desert. "It's happening in Joshua Tree National Park, it's happening in Mojave National Preserve … up in southwestern Utah … and in Arizona. We lost 750,000 acres of desert to fire in Nevada alone last summer."

This summer, five blazes have seared parts of Joshua Tree, where a fire only every few years was the norm for the last 50 years.

Esque and other researchers say that unlike forests and chaparral, the sparsely vegetated desert is not meant to burn frequently.

"The public has come to understand that fire is a necessary part of the life of forests," Esque said. "That is not the case with deserts. We have a major problem going on."

A vocal minority disagrees, contending there is no clear-cut evidence of far-reaching change. They blame this year's fires on bumper crops of wildflowers nourished by heavy spring rains two years ago. According to the theory, dried remnants of the prolific blooms fueled a 50,000-acre fire in the Mojave National Preserve last summer and in this year's conflagrations.

"The winter of 2004-05 was the wettest ever in 100 years of recorded data in the desert. We had a phenomenal crop of annual native wildflowers, and it was dry the next year and it stayed there," said Richard Minnich, a professor of Earth sciences at UC Riverside. "It's flash fuel of 1 to 2 tons per acre. What's really scary is, there's still a lot of it out there."

Scientists do agree that it will take centuries, if not millenniums, for the desert to recover.

"It won't be on a timeline we humans would like, but it will happen," said Tasha LaDoux, Joshua Tree National Park's botanist.

Inside the park, new growth provides fodder for the debate over whether the fragile, arid landscape is undergoing dramatic change.

At the scene of a 1995 fire, not a single juniper or piñon pine seedling has come up after 11 years. But healthy, 3-foot "pups" have sprouted from the roots of once seemingly dead Joshua trees. The pups may or may not survive, scientists say, because in drought years they may be gnawed by thirsty rodents and ground squirrels. Meanwhile, native apricot mallow, bright-green cheesebush and golden California marigold are blooming even in August.

Along a sandy road in the western section, the scene of a 1999 blaze that scorched 14,000 acres, a beige sea of grasses spreads beneath burned Joshua trees bleached silver by sun and rain. The new growth consists of native bunch grasses and a pair of noxious, ankle-scratching weeds.

These two nonnatives, known as red brome and cheatgrass, form highly flammable carpets between native shrubs and trees, and many scientists believe they are the main culprits behind increasing fires.

"These invasive grasses fill in the spaces between the desert plants. They carry the flame through at a very high rate, and much hotter. It spreads a lot faster," Sall said.

The weeds are also bad for animals.

"The ranchers call it cheatgrass because for the first few years it's good grass, but after that it cheats the cattle of their nutrients," Esque said.

Native to Mediterranean Europe and Asia, the weeds were probably blown across the West by the wind, tracked in by hikers' boots and construction equipment, and excreted by livestock. Researchers at UCLA and elsewhere say the weeds appear to capture nitrogen from smog-laden air more readily than native plants, eventually choking them out.

But Minnich of UC Riverside said years of drought had actually caused most of the red brome to die out, while annual native grasses remain safely stored in natural seed banks on adjoining, unburned islands of habitat.

Richard Halsey couldn't disagree more.

"You're going to see a solid blanket of yellow felt next year," he said, meaning a blanket of dried nonnative grasses. Halsey, a former biology teacher who is now a researcher and firefighter, was asked by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to evaluate the role of vegetation in the Sawtooth fire.

"No one else on the planet agrees with Rich Minnich," Halsey said. "I went out there during the fire and after the fire and looked…. Not only didn't I see the volumes of wildflowers he's talking about, but in the burn area specifically…. I had a hard time finding natives. The predominant fire fuel mix was cheatgrass and red brome."

Robert Webb, a hydrologist with the Geological Survey's Tucson office who has studied botany in the Mojave for 30 years, laughed when he heard about the debate.

"The truth is, they may all be right. The desert is very complicated. There is incredible local variability," he said. Echoing other scientists, he said, "Minnich often heaves these ideas out there that are different…. It's healthy, it makes us all look very carefully at our own data."

Webb is writing a paper with other researchers that looks at three post-fire scenarios for the Mojave, all plausible, all different. Rather than focusing on Joshua trees or pines, they studied ancient black brush, a gray-brown shrub that has evolved to withstand desert temperatures and scarce rain.

A single bush can survive thousands of years. But it is highly flammable, proof to Webb that fire is not natural in the desert. One scenario does show nonnatives replacing black brush and causing more frequent fires. But he said data gathered so far made that scenario "only slightly more likely" than two others in which black brush grows back.

"Some of those Joshua trees may sprout too," Wall said, referring to the Pipes Canyon Preserve. "They're an amazing tree."

But others say such a destructive fire in a preserve like Pipes Canyon did lasting harm.

Tom Scott, a zoologist affiliated with UC Berkeley and UC Riverside, said the canyon preserve encompassed "one of the greatest transition zones in North America. If you look at where it starts way up on top of the San Bernardino Mountains, and then descends down to the desert, you're covering this incredible array of habitats, from montane forest down to low desert."

Scott said there were probably smaller pockets of plants and animals that evolved over millenniums in nooks in the preserve, only to be wiped out by this summer's catastrophic fire.

"If we've introduced grasses that are driving fire much further than it used to go, and you've got a lot of these small patches that are really unique in terms of species, then you're erasing them with large conflagrations," he said.

Esque worries about vulnerable desert species such as the reclusive desert tortoise, Scott's oriole, logger-headed shrike and least Bell's vireo songbirds, as mature shrubs that offered shelter are replaced with grasses.

"When you have less cover, with that goes less diversity," he said.

Webb is most concerned about warming temperatures in the desert. Besides causing less winter snow, warmer weather generates more summer thunderstorms and lightning strikes. Lightning started all the fires that ravaged Pipes Canyon Preserve and Joshua Tree National Park this summer.

Others said urbanization, motorized recreation and military activities were also taking a toll on the natural desert.

"What will be the one thing that does in the desert as we know it? It's not one thing. It's the onslaught of all these things," Esque said. He said there was little that could be done to turn back the clock. Many nonnative weeds are too far spread to be dug out, while native seeds are not widely available and can cost millions of dollars to gather and plant.

Beyond planting a bit of native seed, Sall said, she plans to let Pipes Canyon come back on its own, however long it takes.

Greg Hill of the Bureau of Land Management's Palm Springs office said his agency will take a similar approach to other burned areas in the desert.

"We'll let it regenerate naturally," he said. "It's the largest big chunk of undeveloped land left in Southern California."

Experts sow seeds of hope for regrowth

Sawtooth Complex Wildfire Recovery

By Mark Wheeler
Hi-Desert Star


PIONEERTOWN - “Don't give up on the plants.”

This was an oft-repeated and important message delivered Wednesday night at a fire recovery workshop staged in Pioneertown by the SummerTree Institute and Unique Garden Center, with the California Chaparral Field Institute.

Representatives from these three groups stood before approximately 175 to 200 victims of the Sawtooth fire who essentially had one burning question.

“Is all the natural beauty we once had here gone forever?”

Three experts on desert plants and plant ecology answered this question with an only slightly qualified “no.”

The pines and junipers which gave the Sawtooth and Pipes Canyon areas much of their botanical character, the speakers were sorry to say, would not regenerate to their prefire status in any near- or even mid-term future.

Many of the other icon species though, they were happier to report, would make reasonably good progress toward restoration; that is, if their prospects weren't interfered with by poor land management activities in the meantime or competition from invasive species.

Native desert plants are strongest underground, listeners were assured. What this means, they were informed, is that many of the plants here will regenerate from the roots.

Of course, this maxim will apply variably throughout the plant diversity in the area, and some species will demonstrate greater vigor than others in their recovery efforts. However, the primary message from the experts was to give nature a chance.

It's been taking care of itself for a long time, quite nicely enough without our help, they observed.

Not that neighbors can't take some action to help facilitate restoration, and most of the meeting's content was a steady stream of practical suggestions for everything from local sources for seedlings and transplants to growing tips to landscape design against future fire threat.

Central to all the individual suggestions was a single concept all the speakers elaborated on at length and urged with the greatest emphasis. Preserving the integrity of the soil crust, they insisted, would not only be vital to promoting restoration of the beloved native landscape, but would also be the first line of defense against exposing homes and properties to future fire threat.

Specifically, listeners were warned not to scrape, blade, drag or in any way break the soil crust, not even in their sensible efforts to disperse or dig-in the ash and soot on their properties.

They were advised to thin the residue with a leaf rake, and each speaker took pains to explain that the advisory against disturbing the soil crust was based on the vital need to discourage rampant invasion of non-native grasses.

These are powerful rivals of native plants for water, sun and space. In many places in the West, they are displacing natives and weakening ecological diversity.

Moreover, the spreading and dense nature of their growth patterns establishes a fuel highway over the landscape that carries fire easily and quickly from place to place, and their habitat of choice is disturbed soil.

Overheard in the audience were comments on the workshop that expressed everything from awe at how integrated the desert ecology is to vows that, “I'll certainly pay more attention to my landscaping in the future.”

For the most part, people were grateful for the hope they heard in the professional testimony. They were given good reason to believe the Hi-Desert around them would once again flourish with beauty and that they could, in all reality, expect to see it.

In their different ways, the three speakers did, indeed, apply their expertise to the germination of hope. This was the starting place SummerTree's Robin Kobaly said in her opening remarks was the purpose of the workshop.

Continuing with her own part of the presentation, she gave the audience solid botanical reasons to expect that many of the native plants would, in fact, regenerate.

Nursery owner Mike Branning advised listeners how best not to interfere with nature's recovery processes on their property and how to cultivate natives and arid land plants they could obtain from nurseries.

For his part, fire ecologist Richard Halsey explained how landscapes are quite capable of recovering from fire's effects and that we can apply ourselves most appropriately to restoration by not making land-use errors which only increases wildfire fuel loads.

“This is an opportunity,” Halsey encouraged. He and the others defined that opportunity throughout the evening as one for learning from nature's own processes.

Nature will heal itself, the speakers urged, and the abundant instruction in their presentation that evening was to inform people how they might best participate in that process and also, somewhat, help nurture beauty, finally, from their own grief.

Lightning ignites yet another blaze

By Joe Nelson and Guy McCarthy, Staff Writers
Ontario Daily Bulletin

YUCCA VALLEY - Firefighters preparing to go home after battling a 61,000-plus-acre brush fire near Yucca Valley got back into action Thursday when a lightning strike ignited yet another blaze in Joshua Tree National Park.

Lightning struck about 1:30 p.m. in the Covington Flat area of the park. It crept up a hill, crested a ridge and shot down into a canyon, burning toward the southeast tip of Yucca Valley and threatening homes there.

As of 9:30 p.m., it had chewed through 282 acres and burned near the mouth of Black Rock Canyon. Officials ordered 400 breakfasts for hundreds of firefighters who were pulled from the Sawtooth Complex Fire and other blazes for deployment to Joshua Tree.

"This time we had the resources real fast from the Sawtooth (fire)," said Cindy Von Halle, a ranger for Joshua Tree National Park. "Right now we have about 200 firefighters and more are coming."

As night fell, the fire burned in an easterly direction farther into the 794,000-acre park. The blaze was 80 percent contained by 9:30 p.m., and officials expected to have it fully contained by 2 a.m. today.

Residents living on Carmelita Circle in Yucca Valley were advised they might need to evacuate their homes if the fire burned too close, but as of Thursday night, mandatory evacuations had not been ordered.

Pinion Juniper, Pinion Pines, scrub oak, Joshua Trees, Black Brush and a host of other native shrubs stand in the path of the blaze, said Joe Zarki, spokesman for Joshua Tree National Park.

Fires that burned in the park in 1995, 1996, 1998 and 1999 left behind a patchwork of burn areas that could thwart the progress of the fire, Zarki said.

"We'll have to wait and see. It depends on where the wind blows, what the terrain is like and how the air movements affect the fire," Zarki said.

If the fire burns into more vulnerable areas, it could prove disastrous.
"In the unburned zoned area there's quite a bit of fuel that can carry a fire," Zarki said.

Covington Flat Road, also known on some maps as Vermiculate Mine Road, was closed off Thursday to public access. The remainder of the park remained open.

The Covington fire came as a cluster of storm cells passed over the Morongo Basin and San Bernardino Mountains, producing thunder, rain and lightning. Several other brush fires flared up from Thursday afternoon, and a flash-flood warning remained in effect in the Morongo Basin.

The storm threat was expected to diminish overnight and should not pose the threat it did on Thursday, said Philip Gonsalves, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in San Diego.

"We're probably still going to get some showers and thunderstorms, but they're going to be more isolated," Gonsalves said.

On Thursday, however, the county went into high alert, sending pre-recorded telephone messages to residents living in flood-prone areas near Yucca Valley where the Sawtooth fire burned, incinerating vegetation that served as ground cover to trap rainwater and deter mudslides and debris flows.

Earlier in the day, about 200 firefighters were cutting a fire break against the 24,695-acre Heart-Millard Fire in the San Gorgonio Wilderness near Coon Creek when rain began falling and lightning ignited at least six small fires, said Rich Phelps, a fire information officer with the U.S. Forest Service.

"When the storm cells came through this afternoon, we pulled our ground crews off," Phelps said, noting that the risk of flash floods was a concern for firefighters who hike through drainage areas.

Nine helicopters and six helitankers dropped water and retardant on the Heart-Millard blaze throughout the day, and about 14.9 miles of fire break still needed to be cut, Phelps said, adding that the fire is not an immediate threat to the Big Bear Valley and is still burning about eight miles southeast of the mountain resort communities.

The Millard Complex Fire north of Cabazon and the 800-acre Heart Fire, originally part of the 61,700-acre Sawtooth Complex Fire near Big Bear Valley, were combined Wednesday, a day after the Sawtooth blaze was declared 100 percent contained. The Heart-Millard Fire was declared 62 percent contained Thursday.

The Millard and Sawtooth fires were ignited by lighting strikes on July 9, and combined killed one man, destroyed more than 85,000 acres of desert terrain, 50 homes, 171 other structures and 191 cars and trucks.

The combination of fire and rain was a double-edged sword for firefighters and residents.

"It could help things as far as the fires go, but it could make debris flows even more dangerous because there's nothing holding the water back," said Dave Dowling, emergency communications manager for the San Bernardino County Fire Department. "There's no ground cover there now, so people need to stay clear of these washes."

Shortly after lightning ignited the fire in Joshua Tree, other lightning strikes were reported. The 100-acre Tuffnut Fire was burning atop a ridge on the west side of Providence Mountain in the Globe Mine area in the Mojave National Preserve.

In Irwin Lake near Lake Arrowhead, lightning struck and area near Highway 38 and State Lane at 1:42 p.m. and burned about one-eighth of an acre before it was contained at 2:02 p.m., a county fire dispatcher said.

Experts blame grasses, pollution, temperatures for helping fires

By Andrew Silva, Writer
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin [Ontario, CA]

It's not supposed to happen.

Mojave National Preserve: 71,000 acres in flames a year ago.

Joshua Tree National Park: 14,000 acres burned in 1999.

And in the past week, more than 80,000 acres have gone up in smoke as two large fires merged in the Mojave Desert.

In a pine forest, fire is an integral part of the life cycle and is necessary for a healthy, thriving forest.

But in the desert, flames are an unnatural, unwelcome and destructive force when they roar through Joshua trees, cactuses, juniper and pinyon trees.

"In our lifetime, we won't see it back the way it was," said Larry Whalon, chief of resources management for the Mojave National Preserve.

Desert plants may be the hardiest on earth, able to thrive in blistering temperatures and long stretches without water. The harsh conditions also mean it takes a long time for the plants to grow and establish themselves, usually with wide spaces between them.

Sprawling infernos in the desert are a phenomenon not seen until recent decades.

The obvious culprits are grasses that weren't here 200 years ago. Air pollution and average temperatures that have been creeping higher may also be accomplices.

The arrival of settlers in the 19th century also meant the arrival of non-native grasses that have blanketed the desert floor.

In the past, "a lightning strike had a good chance of hitting bare ground," said Joe Zarki, chief naturalist for Joshua Tree National Park.

Some grasses spread across the landscape once seeds carried by non-native settlers and livestock hit the ground. Others were planted deliberately for cattle grazing.

Native grasses and flowers in the desert tend to dry up and blow away when they die, or they remain isolated in bunches.

The exotic grasses, though, remain standing, even after they die.

"In a good wet year like last year, it'll create a carpet" across the desert floor, Zarki said. "Nowadays, lightning is going to hit these fine fuels that ignite easily."

Before, even if lighting struck a tree or patch of shrubs, that small area would burn but there was no way for the flames to move between plants.

The Sawtooth Complex Fire, which destroyed several dozen homes in Pioneertown, is an example. Drive through the burn area and there's mostly a fine layer of ash on the otherwise bare ground where grasses had carried fire to the widely spaced Joshua trees and other native plants.

"Oaks, juniper, Joshua trees don't appear to do well in response to fire," Zarki said.

The ecosystem that exists in the desert now took hundreds of years to get established. A pine forest will look pretty normal a few decades after a fire.

However, desert trees can take hundreds of years to grow.

If the grasses lead to fires every five, 10 or 15 years, the landscape could be altered permanently in a phenomenon called "type conversion," Zarki said. With frequent fires, the native trees won't be able to re-establish themselves, turning the desert into a scrubby grassland.

"Talking about the natural ecosystem in California is like talking about the dodo bird," said William Patzert, a climatologist with NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena.

That appears to go for climate as well.

Temperatures have been rising in the West since the 1970s, and many temperature records have been set in recent years.

Southern California, despite near-record rains in the winter of 2004-05, is effectively in its eighth year of drought, Patzert said.

Part of the increase in temperatures is because of sprawling development. Heat is trapped by the hundreds of square miles of concrete and asphalt, creating what have been dubbed "urban heat islands."

Patzert called it Southern California's "extreme makeover."

The Inland Empire has seen a 5-degree jump in average temperature in just 50 years, he said.

Kelly Redmond, a regional climatologist with the Western Regional Climate Center in Reno, Nev., said he was skeptical that the temperature increase since 1970 was real.

But after looking more carefully at the data and other climate indicators, such as snow melt and when flowers bloom, he now believes the increase is broad and genuine.

His research indicates temperatures across 11 western states have increased an average of 2 degrees since 1970. June was the warmest in 25 years and July appears to be headed for a record also, he said.

At least part of that increase could be attributable to global climate change, the experts said.

To make matters worse, take blistering temperatures, combine them with non-native grasses and mix in some fertilizer. And air pollution could actually be feeding the grasses and helping them spread.

Air pollution is loaded with nitrogen compounds, providing a readily available fertilizer, some researchers have said.

"Without nitrogen, the grasses aren't doing that well," said Philip Rundel, a biology professor at UCLA. "We're doing a massive fertilization experiment and don't know it."

Pappy & Harriet's remains standing

Eric Burdon among legends who have taken stage at historic site

Bruce Fessier
The Desert Sun

Pappy & Harriet's Pioneertown Palace isn't just a musty historical landmark. It's the pantheon of a vibrant high desert music scene.

Queens of the Stone Age, Eric Burdon, Donovan, Camper Van Beethoven. This is the home venue for rock legends who live in the Morongo Basin.

And that scene was saved on Tuesday when the wildfire passed by Pappy & Harriet's.

When U2 producer singer songwriter Daniel Lanois was performing at the now fire-endangered saloon in 2004, it was almost expected that his friend Burdon would show up. Lanois lives in New Orleans. Burdon sings "The House of the Rising Sun" about New Orleans. So Burdon did show up and he did sang "House of the Rising Sun."

Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin recorded the song "29 Palms." And he stayed at the 29 Palms Inn earlier this year. But he didn't sing in the 29 Palms Inn lounge. He drove to Pappy & Harriet's and sang seven songs at that rustic Western saloon.

Dave Lowery, leader of Camper Van Beethoven and the more recent alt rock band Cracker, is hoping to hold his second annual Cracker/Camper Van Beethoven Campout Sept. 8-9.

Pappy & Harriet's isn't just a place for old cowboys. Its diversity is what makes it so legendary, the public radio station KCRW in Santa Monica often tapes shows for broadcast from there.

Young people, old people, middle-aged hippies. They all mix comfortably at Pappy & Harriet's with an appreciation that the music is honest. It's organic.

It was founded in 1946 by a group of investors including Roy Rogers to serve as a place to make cowboy movies. When television came in and they stopped making "B" Westerns, it fell into disuse, but attracted artists and eccentrics who liked the idea of living in a place that was literally a fantasy land.

A group tried to turn it into an amusement park in the 1960s, but the plans by designer Will Hanson never got off the ground. Tumbleweeds and manufactured amusements just didn't fit.

The '60s troubadour Donovan used to sing there in the late 1970s and early '80s, but the place became known as a biker bar around that time.

Pappy Allen and his wife, Harriet. bought the saloon in the mid-1980s and Harriet ran it by herself after Pappy's death in 1994. But it was Robyn Celia and Linda Krantz who brought in the big-name entertainment and fostered the growth of new talent when they bought the club in 2004.

Now emigrés from Los Angeles and San Francisco are coming to the desert to try out new material at Pappy & Harriet's. The palace offers songwriter showcases and jam sessions with the "house band" Thrift Store All Stars.