Saguaro Land is a series from The Show looking at the Sonoran Desert — the lushest, hottest desert in the world that happens to be our home.
Arizona and the West have been dealing with longer wildfire seasons and more severe fires over the past several years. But Mary Lata says fire in the Sonoran Desert is becoming more common.
Lata is the fire ecologist for the Tonto National Forest, which is just shy of 3,000,000 acres. Of that, about 850,000 acres is in the Sonoran Desert, while on the northern end there are about 350,000 acres of ponderosa pine and mixed conifer forests. In between, there’s chaparral and woodlands.
Lata says fire moves across the landscape based on the vegetation, and that while some systems tend to burn quickly — think grasslands — others burn more slowly, but with high severity.
Lata spoke with The Show about how fire impacts the Sonoran Desert with The Show.
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The Show's Amy Silverman reflects on the Saguaro Land series, and the plight of the iconic Sonoran Desert cactus that is its namesake. -
The Show is exploring the desert season by season in the series Saguaro Land — through music, art, literature, food, drink, flora and fauna — and now through design. -
Journalist Caroline Tracey has watched as Instagram and other platforms have turned a spotlight on the desert in ways she finds both refreshing — and troubling. She spoke to The Show more about the trend and what it means. -
In The Show's newest installment of Saguaro Land, we learned about using the desert to make music from Kyle Bert, who has been turning agave stalk into didgeridoos for 25 years. -
Tempe artist Safwat Saleem used baking as a metaphor for describing how he and his young daughter are learning to thrive in the Sonoran Desert.
