The Year Yellowstone Burned by Jeff Henry

Since the mid-1970s, park fire policy had been to allow natural fires-started by lightning or other natural causes-to burn. Fire also stimulates regeneration of sagebrush, aspen and willow. Some lodgepole pines, which make up about 80 percent of the park’s forests, have cones that are sealed by resin until the intense heat of fire cracks them open and releases the seeds. In fact, many plant species within the park are fire-adapted. The understanding of fire in natural ecosystems had been growing for years prior to the Yellowstone conflagrations, and one of the legislative mandates of Yellowstone National Park is to maintain as nearly as possible “primitive ecological conditions.”įire is one of the most basic natural processes. President Ronald Reagan, roused to comment on the policy, admitted that he hadn’t known about it until September 14, after the fires had been long under way. During that overheated summer of 1988, they burned about 683,000 of the park’s 2.2 million acres and about 1.2 million acres total within the greater Yellowstone area, which includes several national forests adjoining the park as well as Grand Teton National Park.įire experts originally did nothing to combat the blazes because that was park policy-a policy that surprised a lot of reporters and politicians, including the president of the United States. They grew so large they were no longer fires but “complexes,” according to a 1994 report issued by the U.S. The largest were named Fan, North Fork, Clover-Mist, Hellroaring, Storm Creek, Mink, Snake and Huck.

Then, in rapid succession over a period of about two weeks, a series of fires broke out across Yellowstone National Park. Park fire experts noted the Fan Fire’s ignition and did … nothing. The Fan Fire was the first fire of that summer to erupt within Yellowstone National Park, though the Storm Creek fire had ignited about a week earlier north of the park boundary and would eventually make its way into the park proper.

This crown fire threatened Yellowstone's Grant Village. High winds moved fires fast through crowns of trees, throwing burning embers a mile or more ahead of the conflagrations, jumping roads, rivers and firelines.

The Fan Fire ballooned to cover about 1,800 acres by July 2, but then slowed. The lightning bolt started a small forest fire, which became known as the Fan Fire. On June 30, 1988, lightning struck a tree in the Crown Butte region of Yellowstone National Park, in the park’s far northwest corner near where the borders of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming meet.

The Year Yellowstone Burned by Jeff Henry