Remembering Yellowstone Fires of 1988
Just yesterday the fire danger in Yellowstone National Park went from moderate to high. The park is no stranger to fires.
“From 1972 to 2017 with 1988 excluded we averaged 26 fire starts per year. And we have averaged in the same time frame 5,900 acres burned per year,” says Becky Smith, Wildland Fire Ecologist.
The North Fork Fire in 1988 raged through 410,000 acres. There were nine human-caused fires and 42 lightning-caused fires that year. The most active fire season since then was in 2016 with 70,285 acres being burned.
“We’re actually not in the business of preventing what happened in 88 because what we learned from that season and then again in 2016 is that this is a fire-adapted, fire depending ecosystem,” says John Cataldo, Wildland Fire Management Officer.
“There are big benefits for not only the vegetation but animal species that use the forest. So fire has a way of recycling carbon because we have such a dry climate here that our large woody debris on the ground doesn’t necessarily break down quickly,” says Smith.
They try not to close the park during fires that aren’t threatening.
“Quite often our fires here are more of an educational opportunity about fire ecology than they are a threat to visitor safety especially if they’re a few miles in the backcountry. Got a nice pullout along the road where we can put a fire information officer to interpret for folks,” says Cataldo.
They say another thing they learned was to improve communication with neighboring agencies. They say they’re in better communication than they have been in the fast.
