The Yellowstone Fires of 1988

I'd heard about the Yellowstone fires of 1988, but until we got to the park, I didn't understand the full extent of it. Unlike Rich, this wasn't my first time here. I went to Yellowstone with my family when I was about 11, in 1980. I remembered the hot springs and lots of really tall trees. Well, a lot of that is gone. As soon as we drove into the park at the west entrance, there's evidence of past fire everywhere. There's dead trees standing up and laying down everywhere. But as signs that nature heals itself, there's signs saying, "naturally reseeded after the first of 1988". Because among the dead trees are growing evergreens that are 10-15' tall, signs of rebirth. Apparently the national parks policy of natural and man-caused fires used to be to let themselves burn themselves out, but that was changed in 1988. According to this article, a series of weather conditions (along with a few human-caused fires) caused a total of 706,277 acres of Yellowstone's 2.2 million acres to be burned. On August 20, now known as "Black Saturday", more land burned than in any other DECADE since 1872. Over 10,000 firefighters helped in the over $100,000,000 effort to save Yellowstone. They did manage to save the historic Old Faithful Inn.

So that's the scoop on the fires. Interesting and sad at the same time.

-Laura