Transmitting from the Mojavee wilderness in Joshua Tree, California, now is the time for Desert Oracle Radio, the voice of the desert.

Night has fallen on the Mojave and fire is on our minds tonight wildfire.

Wildfires tearing through the dry chaparral terrain of the Southern California coastal mountains

and canyons.

A rich and often wild landscape of pine, oak, sycamore, fat with dry weeds this December.

An explosion of grasses and invasive weeds that grew up earlier this year after so many hard years of intense drought.

And it all dried to a crisp in the searing summer that followed.

Rain is not in our forecast in the deserts of California and Arizona and southern New Mexico

over these next weeks. It's too warm for almost winter, and there's no rain,

and fire is a very big danger for all of us out here,

whether alongside a nature preserve or a national forest or a national monument.

These more or less natural and protected lands around our giant cities are things we have

because we wisely chose to keep them intact, but we also love putting our houses right up

against these places. The urban wildland interface is often described by the biologists and the

firefighters.

I tell you, I am as guilty as they come when you're talking about human habitation right on the edge of the wilderness.

Right on the edge of a preserve or a natural park or the national forest,

I want to walk out my door and into the desert, into the rocks, onto the trail, down the river, up the coast, up the mountain. My God, you make a bargain when you live out where you can

breathe. And that bargain goes something like, well, there are no jobs and not much in the way of restaurants,

and bookstores are few and far between, and good luck trying to get a decent cocktail,

although you can get good beer and spirits.

You can get organic wine at the health food store, but you make trade-offs.

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