Hawk’s Landing owner Cindy Melland instrumental in keeping Joshua Tree National Park safe during fires

Joshua Tree superintendent Jane Rodgers was at the last Yucca Valley Town council meeting where she gave a few updates on our neighboring National Park. Shortly after the Federal Government shutdown began in early October a fire had broken out in the Black Rock Campground area on October 12th, which eventually burned 72 acres of old growth Joshua Tree forest.

During the shutdown, National Parks like Joshua Tree were on a skeleton crew and fees were waived to enter the park. While the fire devastated Western Joshua Trees that can take hundreds of years to grow, Superintendent Rodgers says it could have been worse.

 “We did lose a number of Joshua Trees. If you hike the West Side Loop Trail or the Black Rock Canyon Trail, you can walk through that area if you’re curious and you’d like to see what it looks like right now. And what you’ll see is a perimeter entirely surrounded by a retardant and that’s what kept the fire so small.

“So there was a few things that lined up. One was a very rapid response reporting of the fire and rapid response (from) County Fire response getting on scene very quickly and that bought us even more time to get more resources on site. 

“Putting out a fire, managing fire, we often rely on weather conditions and the weather was cooperative that day to allow for a very aggressive air response with retardant tankers and helicopter response to drop water. The fire could have gone well over 1,500 acres. So keeping it at 72 was just amazing, amazing work by everybody involved.”

Yucca Valley Golf Course provided water, no questions asked

Those helicopters also had some essential support from the ground, namely Cindy Melland who owns Hawk’s Landing Golf Course in Yucca Valley. Superintendent Rodgers explained to the Yucca Valley Town Council how the water the golf course provided was instrumental in saving the park.

“Folks may not realize but we’ve had two fires in the park this year. We had one at Eureka Peak earlier this spring that ended up burning about 200 acres also in Joshua Tree Habitat and in both of those fires, the golf course and Cindy’s support allowing us to use helicopters to dip into the the water source was absolutely critical for us to save the park and put those fires out.

I know a lot of you know Cindy really well. I’ve gotten to know you a little bit over the years but she is such a humble person. She never really reached out to me and asked about like ‘hey how’s this gonna work,’ with this and she just was there.

“She was there as a citizen of Yucca Valley, as a citizen of our community and she gave when we needed it and I just want to thank you on behalf of the National Park, on behalf of all the communities that rely on the park for tourism and enjoyment because you really played a key role and I just want to thank you publicly and in front of everybody here at the council.”

Federal shutdown impacts

The federal government shutdown that ultimately lasted 43 days was the longest in United States history, but Superintendent Rodgers says it was less damaging to Joshua Tree National Park than previous shutdowns. She told the council “We were able to keep the park open and accessible. I’m really proud of our staff. We didn’t have some of the concerns and issues that happened previously during an extended shutdown.”

JTNP Visitation and a new West Entrance

Rodgers also shared a few updates on visitation numbers. Joshua Tree National park hit its peak visitation in 2023 with 3.2 million visitors, and in 2024 that dropped to about 2.9 million. 

Joshua Tree National Park’s West Entrance is back open today (12/6) with a new entrance booth and expanded inbound and outbound lanes that should help alleviate some of the backup that can occur on the busiest days.

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