OF FIRE AND SMOKE

Mother Nature has her ways of keeping the wilderness evolving, renewing. Sometimes through flood, sometimes through earth movement, often through fire. Yellowstone has seen all of these but perhaps the single most important agent of change for Yellowstone since its birth as a Park has been the fires of 1988.

Even though Yellowstone literally is a caldera, the smoke and heat smoldering below its surface was only a campfire compared to the fires above during the long, hot, dry summer of fire in 1988. The first fire of the season, Storm Creek in the Custer National Forest northeast of the Park, was caused by lightning.  The first fire in the Park, the Shoshone Fire near Shoshone Lake, was also ignited by lightning. This fire was followed just a few days later by the lightning-caused Fan Fire in the northeast corner of the Park. Throughout the next three months, both lightning and man-caused fires just outside the Park ignored Park boundaries, quickly merging with other fires already alight in the Park’s forests.

Fire companies and hot shot teams from all over the country came to Yellowstone to protect the Jewel of the Crown. Even volunteers showed up to help and were put to work.  A volunteer, a retired Chicago firefighter Ron Scharfe living in Missoula, came down to help and in the end was credited with saving our iconic Old Faithful Inn. But as other fires started all over the West, it became apparent that the Summer of Fire was way beyond Yellowstone and the resources were severely inadequate. On August 19, The Boise Interagency Fire Center called on the Department of Defense for help. On August 20, Black Saturday, the fire within the Park doubled in size and strong winds, exploding fireballs and massive walls of flame caused the firefighting efforts to temporarily cease. Sometimes wildfire is just too hungry and dangerous to fight and firefighters are pulled back from the lines.

From the beginning and then all summer long as the various agencies, the public and even Congress engaged in heated discussions of the correct management for the fires. Meanwhile, the Park continued to burn. As dark smoke curled over the geysers at Old Faithful and the hills at Mammoth disagreements over the best way to handle the fire raged. Cooperation among the various agencies controlling the fires in and around Yellowstone was virtually nonexistent. National Forest personnel had to worry about the summer homes all up and down the Gallatin Range and the tiny communities of West Yellowstone and Cooke City. Yellowstone Park Rangers, believing that fire was natural and would be good for the forest and that Yellowstone’s overmature lodgepole pines were at the end of their lifespans, looked at the fire as a way to replenish the stock, reseed the forest. Opposite needs, opposite effects made it difficult to get any agreement.

In 1988, wilderness fire was still a ‘hot topic’ among wilderness management specialists, some advocating allowing natural fires to burn while most urged immediate fire suppression before fire could spread. There were valid concerns for the wildlife, the sacred bison, elk, moose and bear of Yellowstone and before the fire was snuffed out by the first snows of autumn, over 400 large animals had been killed.  Although from the very beginning the Park immediately responded to the need for Visitors’ safety and the safety of the Park’s structures, Park Superintendent Bob Barbee hesitated when it came to natural fires in areas where no structures existed and human life was not threatened. But by mid-July, with fires burning all over the Park and Ecosystem, Barbee ordered every new fire suppressed.

Both sides were right and both sides were wrong. Neither National Forest nor National Park Rangers had any clue that Mother Nature would push the Yellowstone ecosystem to its absolute limit. Fires, both manmade and lightning caused, would join together in great conflagrations that would eventually consume over one-third of the Park. In the end, the only solid agreement the agencies had was that the fires were way beyond their control, perhaps way beyond anyone’s control.

As the firelines moved fluidly through the Park and the political battle lines were drawn, Superintendent Bardee kept the Park open, a decision with which the media, most of Congress and much of the public disagreed. Fire up this close was rarely available to the public and despite public outcry, many visitors thronged the Park to watch the Jewel of the Crown burn. The Superintendent’s motivation was to allow visitors to see Mother Nature doing what Mother Nature has been doing since before we puny humans had learned to walk erect – replenish the ecosystem by fire. And, perhaps, during an administration that was not generous to the National Park system, to provide the public an opportunity to see how stretched the Park System’s resources have become.

I’ve thought a lot about the wisdom of keeping the Park open during the fires. In my view, one of the greatest missions of the National Parks is to teach us how to live with Mother Nature. Mother Nature is not always soft cuddly fawns, stunning sunsets and beautiful waterfalls. Natural disasters are only ‘disasters’ because we humans choose to name them so. Often the ‘disaster’ is of our own making – building houses in river bottom flood plains and in mountain forests. We dam rivers for recreation, power and ‘flood control’ and then watch our once rich soil lose its nutrients. I think the Superintendent made a really good decision in letting us see Mother Nature’s less gentle side. I wish I had been here to see it, too.

Yellowstone has suffered other large fires. Tree rings show the history of fire here in the Park and also the periods of growth and rejuvenation in between.  Now, 25 years after Yellowstone’s summer of fire, Mother Nature’s natural plans are most obvious in the growth of new lodgepole saplings, entire mountainsides of them. Lodgepoles as overmature as the ones that burned in 1988 are tall and without branches below but with a tight canopy above. This tight, shady canopy does not allow new growth near the ground. And lodgepole pine cones are so tough, seeds are only dropped when the cone bursts from the heat of forest fires. Years of fire suppression had made the forest old, and without Mother Nature’s handiwork doing its very ancient job, these forests would die without a new generation of saplings to take their places.

But fire does leave its legacy in more ways than rejuvenation. Twenty years after the fires of 1988, taking a break from walking around Artist Paintpots, I struck up a conversation with a Ranger.  I noticed he was becoming more agitated as clouds in the western sky began to build into dark storm clouds. I finally asked him if something was wrong. The Ranger looked over at the darkening skies and told me he had seen clouds very similar to these in the fire of 1988. He still had moments of panic and Post Traumatic Stress when clouds gathered in a certain way on the horizon.

The fires of 1988 changed everything - the landscape, the people, the plant life and even the wildlife. Certainly, the disjointed handling of the fire in and out of the Park resulted in much better and more coordinated fire management. It seems fact that the fires are largely responsible for the rebirth of Yellowstone’s lodgepole forests. But others claim that the decline in the Park’s moose population was a direct result of the fires.  It is true that the moose have been declining in Yellowstone but it is not scientifically obvious that the fires of 1988 have been the main cause.  Although there was an initial drop in population, other large mammal species have increased partly due to increased forage made available due to the forest opening up for its undergrowth. And the ghostly relics of the burned lodgepole have provided various utility for Yellowstone’s wildlife.

It is fact that fire, no matter how scary it is, replenishes. Anyone who has seen the increase in wildflowers on the forest floor after a fire can attest to that. Some felt the fires of 1988 would be the death of the world’s first National Park. Others now claim the fires have caused Yellowstone’s rebirth. When I drive through the new lodgepole forests, I can’t help mourning the tall majestic trees that are now darkened spikes poking through the new forest but I also am struck by the soft green of the surrounding saplings.

Yellowstone has always been a place of fire and smoke. In the summer of 1988, that fire and smoke began an evolutionary rebirth that still goes on today. It will take a very, very long time for the evidence of the fires to be completely erased. I think that’s a good thing. Mother Nature has her way of caring for the Earth and her ways often conflict with ours. We are the interlopers here. Mother Nature will be around long, long after our species no longer exists on this beautiful Earth. The question continues to be, will the Earth be a better place because humans have passed through its history? Regardless, with or without our help, Mother Earth will continue to repair and rejuvenate this beautiful planet through her endless cycle of flood, earth movement and fire.