At 2:17 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 1, firefighters from the Palm Springs Fire Department responded to a blaze at the 120-acre Prescott Preserve.
A second alarm soon brought firefighters from the Cathedral City Fire Department and Cal Fire. The blaze, which had already involved multiple palm trees and had the potential to spread further, was attacked aggressively by some 36 personnel using specialized equipment, including a water tender holding thousands of gallons of water to access areas that were too far from hydrants.
Within a few hours, the fire was under control. It had burned 3 1/2 acres of natural habitat, including roughly 100 palm trees off the walking trails near the palm oasis area of the preserve. Thankfully, nobody was injured, and no structures were damaged.
The fire could have been much, much worse. In some ways, it was a wakeup call.
In a video update released by the Oswit Land Trust (OLT), the nonprofit organization that owns and maintains the Prescott Preserve, founder and executive director Jane Garrison recalled how she first became aware of the threat to the preserve.
“Sunday afternoon, my phone just started blowing up with texts and calls,” Garrison said. “The first one I got was from Scott Collins, our wildlife expert. I’ll never forget: I answered the phone and he said, ‘Jane, the preserve’s on fire’ … and then it was clarified that it was our crown jewel (of the preserve), the palm oasis.”
A major concern for everyone involved—including the OLT, Palm Springs fire and police, and nearby neighbors at the Mesquite Country Club condos—is that, as of this writing, the fire’s cause has not yet been established.
“We are 99.9% sure it was human-caused,” Garrison said in an interview with the Independent. “Whether it was intentional or not is to be determined. The arson investigators have been out, actually, multiple times to the property. It didn’t start in an area that was dry. It was a beautiful 80-degree day, no wind, no lightning, no power lines in that area—so the only way that a fire could have started was from a human. We just don’t know if someone intentionally started it, or if somebody flicked a cigarette somewhere, but it was off-trail where it started. (Walking off the trails in the still-evolving preserve is prohibited by the OLT.) We just don’t know right now.”
After Fire Chief Paul Alvarado delivered an after-action report to the Palm Springs City Council on Feb. 11, he spoke with KMIR reporter Alondra Campos about the investigation.
“There were reports that someone saw a person leaving a few minutes before the fire began,” he said. “So we have a fire-investigation department within our fire department, but we work closely with the police department as well. … We traced those and, unfortunately, those leads were unfounded. We were not able to find anyone that was responsible, whether intentionally or unintentionally, for that fire—but that doesn’t mean that the case is closed. We’re always open for new information. If anyone has any information, please notify the Palm Springs Fire Department, and we’ll be sure to follow up on that.”
Palm Springs Police Department Capt. Gustavo Araiza told the Independent via email that the investigation is ongoing.
“There are two parts to the overall investigation: the fire investigation, where the fire department attempts to determine the cause, and the criminal investigation (conducted by the police department). The criminal investigation is still active and has not been abandoned. We are still seeking the community’s assistance,” Araiza said.
The police department is looking for someone in particular: “A woman was seen about 20 minutes prior to the fire who may have seen something. She is a white female adult, 5 foot 8, blonde hair and walking a small dog. She is not a suspect, but detectives would like to interview her. Anyone with information related to the fire (should) contact Detective Alex Doherty at 760-323-8142, or via email at alexander.doherty@palmspringsca.gov.”
The lack of a suspect or a known cause is frustrating, Garrison told the Independent.
“We actually have trail ambassadors,” she said. “We have rangers. On a Sunday afternoon, that preserve is so frequented. … We had so many people who have reached out to us and said, ‘Oh my gosh, I was walking on the preserve when it happened. I had gone by this area five minutes before.’ We do inspections of that property several times a day. We have cameras throughout that property, as we do on all of our properties. We take security very seriously because of situations like this, and because of other situations that could harm wildlife and cause other problems.
“But you know, it takes one person to be out of range of the camera, and one spark to make a tragedy like this happen.”
Tragedy was thankfully was avoided in the Prescott Preserve fire. The devastating January 2025 blazes that ripped through Los Angeles are fresh in the minds of many Coachella Valley residents. Maui is still recovering from deadly fires in August 2023. Last summer, at least 30 people died in wildfires across Europe.
A nearby resident who identified himself as Mr. Bradley witnessed the fire.
“It was 150 feet high, it looked like a Roman candle, only it was 100 Roman candles,” he told the Palm Springs City Council on Feb. 11. “And I looked at it, and I thought of what we saw on TV last year in Los Angeles, and that was scary. I can tell you right now, had there been any kind of wind—west wind, south wind, east wind, north wind—the consequences would have been absolutely drastic.”
During that Feb. 11 session, the council pledged to follow up regarding prevention and mitigation strategies for high-wind events or other concerns.
Fortunately, it appears the fire’s damage to the long-term health of the Prescott Preserve may have been minimal—even to the palm trees involved, as well as the pond and the wildlife that resides in that oasis area.
David Paisley, OLT’s deputy director and community engagement director, spoke to KMIR about the positive effects of the cleanup and recovery efforts initiated the day after the fire.
“Getting as much of that debris out of the water was the first step,” Paisley said. “We had many biologists and pond experts come out here, and that was their first suggestion. … We had 75 volunteers come out and just clean this up. It started on Monday. We worked for about four days, and by Friday after the fire, this was all opened and ready to go.”
According to Garrison, the preserve team had done a routine test of the oasis pond’s water just four days before the fire, meaning they have a set of readings that can serve as a baseline for how the pond’s environment is responding and recovering.
In his interview with KMIR, Paisley said the post-fire water quality is “not great right now … (which is) to be expected. So, we are going to keep testing the water every two weeks, and eventually, when the water quality is stable, we’ll reintroduce fish. When we introduce the fish, a lot of the birds that come here to eat the fish will come back. A lot of people ask about the turtles who live in the pond. The turtles are fine. I guess they went underwater during the fire.”
As for the palm trees? “After just more than a week, they’re already shooting up new green fronds,” Paisley told KMIR. “These kinds of palm trees are really resilient to fire. We were afraid that a lot of them would die, but when I look across this landscape, almost all of them have new green fronds. … I think what we really learned through this is that Prescott Preserve is something that the community really wants and they value, and their response really showed that to us.”
Much work still needs to be done, and the considerable associated costs are a serious concern for Garrison and the OLT team. While Oswit obtained grant funding to cover some ongoing costs for the restoration of the preserve, none of that money can help address the damage from this fire.
“Our restoration grant … none of that money can be used at that palm oasis,” Garrison said. “None of it. We did not include the palm oasis in our restoration grant, because it was so perfect. There was nothing to restore there. … That’s another reason why this is just so tragic, because that was the most perfect place in the entire 120 acres.”
One potential fire-related expense could be the need to replace the liner in the oasis pond. It is lined with either plastic or cement, rather than a natural layer of dirt and rock, as it was created as part of the now-defunct golf course.
“We don’t know the damage to the liner, because dead branches or dead trees may have fallen in and ripped it,” Garrison told the Independent. But we’ll know in the coming months, because our water bill will be through the roof, because it will be leaking. We already spend an enormous amount of money every month to water the trees and plants and everything that’s at Prescott Preserve. … If we find that the liner there is really torn, and we’re leaking a lot of water, it’s a massive project—that’s over a million dollars to replace the liners on those ponds. You’d have to drain it, and you’d have to make sure every little critter that’s in there is safe, because that’s who Oswit Land Trust is. We don’t just drain a pond and let everybody die.”
As a result, the OLT is asking the public for financial support. Garrison also had a more unusual request of human neighbors living in communities near the preserve.
“In the last couple of years, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service came out, and they put up equipment to monitor our bat population by the oasis, and we had a significantly high bat population, including bats that were species of special concern,” Garrison said. “They live under the dead palm fronds, and all of that habitat is gone. These were native trees, and these were really good habitat for bats, for hawks and for owls. … The entire community can help give wildlife a little lift up by just waiting to trim and cut (their palm trees) until after nesting season. With so many people leaving anyway (during the summer), why is it important to trim? You know a lot of people are reaching out saying, ‘How can I help? What can I do?’ Obviously, donations are really needed right now, and volunteering is also a fabulous way to help. And a simple decision to wait (until September) to trim trees and bushes after nesting season also helps.”
Meanwhile, Garrison pledged that OLT would continue its work—on the Prescott Preserve and beyond.
“We’re increasing all of our cameras on all of our properties … We have people going out on our properties all the time and inspecting,” Garrison told the Independent. On any given day, if you walk one of our properties, you’re going to encounter one of our trail ambassadors who is there to answer questions and to watch.
“This is just a really unfortunate, devastating thing that happened, but it’s not going to slow us down. We’re going to keep moving forward. We’re going to keep working on the restoration. We’re going to keep acquiring other land, because we don’t have the luxury of time in Southern California. You know, anything that we don’t save could be destroyed.”
To learn more or support the Oswit Land Trust, visit oswitlandtrust.org.