The hardy desert denizens of Morongo Valley have survived monsoonal rains, flash floods, ice storms and blistering Mojave Desert heat -- and that's just in the last few years.
Now they can add a windblown wildfire that torched 3,022 acres and destroyed six homes and a barn Wednesday and Thursday.
By Thursday evening, 800 firefighters had the Paradise blaze, which smoldered two miles south of Yucca Valley and just west of Joshua Tree National Park, 50% contained and hoped to have it completely under control by 6 p.m. today.
San Bernardino County Fire Division Chief Paul Summers said firefighters caught a break when the wildfire jumped the Twentynine Palms Highway and headed east toward the desert rather than north toward neighborhoods.
"We were very lucky," Summers said. "We could have lost 700 structures easy."
Although investigators now know the fire started at a home in Morongo Valley, the cause is still unclear, he said.
High Desert residents such as Cathy Forcoran, who have taken root alongside the yucca plants, tend to stand their ground.
On Wednesday, Forcoran used a garden hose to battle the flames near her home.
"She blistered her toes fighting that fire," said her neighbor, Gerry Strauss. "Someone told her it wouldn't do her any good," he said, but Forcoran replied that the effort was doing her good, "even if it's only psychologically doing me good."
Forcoran's house survived.
Residents say the refuge the valleys provide is worth the sometimes rough conditions.
"In a smaller city, you're not as stressed as you can be in the big city with all the freeways and traffic and everything else that goes on down there," said Sandy Pratt, a mosaic artist who has lived near Yucca Valley and Twentynine Palms for three decades.
The bone-dry Mojave Desert valleys at the foot of Southern California's highest mountains -- which rise from a few hundred feet to more than 11,000 in a span of a few miles -- are hit by fires, floods and snow with some regularity, said Ed Clark, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in San Diego.
Flash floods in 2003 washed away cars and blocked highways near the quiet community tucked between the snow-capped San Gorgonio and San Jacinto mountain peaks; high winds tore a roof of one desert home during a thunderstorm the same year.
Storm clouds trapped against the mountains "will cause the rain to pour down there," Clark said, which leads to floods on the barren land.
