RESEARCH NEWS ANDCOMMENTS Yellowstone Fires: A

RESEARCH
NEWSAND COMMENTS
Paul Schullery,Technical
Writer,Besearch
Division.
Yellowstone
Park,Wyoming82i90
YellowstoneFires:A PreliminaryReport
The fires of the GreaterYellowstoneArea (GYA)
were almost daily national newsin July, August,
and Septemberof 1988.The fires weredescribed
ln many ways: a national tragedy, a natural
wonder,a unique researchopportunity,the most
significant ecologicalevent in the history of the
national parks, a policy disaster,and nature exercising its prehistoric right to make over landscapes.
Now that the fires are out, it appearsthat they
might bestbe characterizedmore simply as a big
surprise.Managersand their scientific advisors
on U.S. ForestService(USFS)and National park
Service(NPS)wildernesslands in the GYA were
surprisedby the magnitudeof fires that exceeded
all imaginedscenariosbuilt into their respective
natural fire management plans. The nation's
foremostprofessionalfirefighterswere surprised
to seefires exhibiting behavior and power that
the bestfire behaviormodelsfailed to predict.
Most Americans,includingthe Presidentof the
United States,were surpr:isedto discover that
there even was such a thing aB a natural fire
policy. Certainly the media were caught by surprise;their coverageof the fires provedso uneven
and confusedthat after-the-factrepo ing on the
fires, now appearing in rnany magazines,frequently devotes substantial ink to correctrnq
misimpressions
developed
by dailymediareporG
ourlng lne tues.
We seemnow,at the end of 1988,to be past
thestageof frequentsurprises.
As an assortment
of independent
panels.interagency
commissions,
and other goyernmentteam6go about the anal_
ysis of the fires, fire policy, and fire fighting
procedures, bureaucratic routine and process
replacenature'swhimsy,But lack of surprises
should not lesseninterest in Yellowstonelsextraordinary fire season,especiallyamong mem44
NorthwestScience,Vol. 63, No. l, 1989
bers of the scientific comrnunity.The fires, as
severalobservershave noted, are only the first
act of the play, and there promisesto be a lot
ot clramayet to come.
Fire ManagementHistory
Sinceearly in this century,plant ecologistshave
recognized the significant role of naturally
causedfire in many forestcommunities.Prior to
the arrival of Europeans,fire (set by lightning
or by nativeAmericans)was
nearlyas importani
as soilsand climatein deterrriningthe condition
and cornpositionof many plant communities.
Fires burned patches,sometimessmall, sometimes large, of vegetationin irregular patterns,
creating and maintaining habitat diversity for
plants and animals.North Americanlandscapes
were in fundamenlalwaysthe productsof fire.
Fire suppressionwasthe order of the day on
both public and p vate lands until relatively recent times,when severalfederal agenciesbegan
to experiment with prescribed (that is, intentionally allowed, whether human or lightnidgcaused)burns, The USFS began using humanset prescribedburns as a silvicultural tool in a
few areasin the Southeastin the 1940s,for the
purposesof removing low-valuegrowth or gen€ratrngnew even-agegrowth. In 1970,the USFS
began to permit lightning-causedfires to burn
on somewildlandsin order to preservewilderness
va.lues,
which werecloselyidentifiedin rhe public
mind with the 4atural processesof primitive
wildlands.
The NPS, with its more wilderness-oriented
legislativemandates.
wasmoreaggressive
in attempting to reestablishthe role of natural fire
in its wildernesssettings.Managersbeganaclvely experimenting with human-set prescribed
burns in EvergladesNational Park in 1958 to
protect pine forests from incursions of hardwoods.ln 1968.afterseveralyearsof experirrtentation with smallhuman-setprescribedburns,Sequoia National Park establisheda natural fire
program, and by 1978,twelve areasin the National Park Systemhad programsto allowat least
somenaturally causedfires to burn. The goal of
theseprogramsdiffered from that of early USFS
programsin that a state of primitive wildnessand resulting species diversity and dynamic
processes-was of primary importance rather
than the production of lumber.
The GYA includes roughly 12 million acres
in northwesternWyoming, southcentral Montana, and east central Idaho. YellowstoneNational Park, a 2.2 million acre reseryationat the
centerof the GYA, initiated its Fire Management
Plan in 1972,with 340,000acresof backcountry
designatedfor natural fire burns.By 1976,about
1.7million acreswithin YellowstonePark wasincluded within natural fire zones. Yellowstone
Park's Fire ManagementPlan required suppression of all fires that showedrisk of threatening
humanlife, property, historic and cultural sites,
specificnatural features,or threatenedand endangeredspecies.Human-causedfires were all
subjectto immediate suppression,and the Fire
ManagementPlan gave park managersthe option of stating fires for purposesof researchor
to speedup the natural process.
Therehasbeenconsiderableconfusionin the
mediaoverlhe exlentand effectsof fire suppression in Yellowstone.The first known federal involvementin fire fighting occuned in the then
fou een-year-oldpark in 1886, when the U.S.
Cavalry was assignedto its protection. One of
theirfirst dutieswasto fight a fire burningnear
in the
MammothHot Springs,park headquarters,
northernpart of the park. From that time on until
the early 1970s,the goal of managementwas to
suppressany fires, whether they were natural or
human-caused.Fire suppressionon the park's
northern range, a mixed grassland/sageland
region making up less than 20 percenr of the
park, hasbeenlargelysuccessful
for nearlya century. A fire cycle-thar is, the rate at which
natural fires recur-of 25 ro 100 yearshas been
documentedon someportionsof the northern
range. Consequently,fire suppressionthere has
been underwaylong enough to have noticeable
effects on Dlant communilies.
in the rest
0n the other hand,fue suppression
of the park, which waslargelycoveredby forests,
\{as much more difficult. It was easierto reach
and suppressfires on the no hern range than
in the vast forests that coyer mosl of the park,
and so firefighting in the forests was not consistently successfuluntil after World War II,
when aerial fire fighting technology became
available,thus allowingeasiermovementof men
and equipment to fires in hard-to-reachbackcountry areas.
The fire cycle in the forestshas been determined through tree-ringstudiesto be 250 to 400
years.This is of coursea much longer fire cycle
than that on the northern range, and is also a
far shorter period of effective fire suppression.
But the differencesin fire cyclesin differentparts
of the park have escapedthe notice of many
media, and the short fire cycle and long history
of fire suppressionon the northern range have
often appearedin the media as applying to the
entire park. This hasIed to unfortunate general"unnatural buildups" of forest
izations about
fuels becauseof fire suppressionin the park. In
fact, fire suppressionin the park forestsover the
years since World War II may not have made
much difference in fuel levels.Older stands of
lodgepolepines quite naturally contain substantial levels of dead and down trees, which have
been describedincorrectly as unnatural or abnormal by both agencypersonneland repo ers.
in the GYA
Fire Management
Within the GYA are portions of 6 national
forests,2 national parks,and 2 national wildlife
refuges. In the past fifteen years, substantial
progresshas been madein coordinatingecological managementacrossagencyboundaries;part
of the progresswas developmentof agreements
betweenthe Park Serviceand someneighboring
forestsregardingthe acceptanceof eachother's
natural fires. In principle, this meant that a
natural fire starting on one agency'sland could
be monitored jointly and could conceivablybe
welcometo cross the boundary. In fact, there
were considerabledifferencesin definitions betweenthe agenciesover what wasan acceptable
size fire and what wasacceptablefire behavior.
The Park Service'sdefinitionof acceptabilitywas
aimedat accommodatingpotentiallymuch larger
fires than the Forest Service's. Generallv,the
YellowstoneFires
45
B. Prescribedburn fires
A. Total burned areas.
D. Natural fires originating
outside YellowstonePark
Figure L Background to fires affecting the Greater Y€llowsroneArea. A. toral burned ar€as of the Park Ghaded).B. €rrent
of natural fires originally nanaged as prescribedburns under the YNP Fire Manasen€nt Plan. C. extent of human.
causedfires originating outside ofYNP, bul spreadinginto the Park. D. exteni of naturally causedfires originating
outside of YellowstoneNational Park, but spreading into the Park.
ForestServicehad much tighter restrictionson
fire; the ForestService'ssystemrequiredthat
fires be suppressedunder climate and fuel conditions that the Park Servicestill found tolerable
for allowingfires to burn, and the ForestService
set absolutemaximum acreages(1,000acres in
ShoshoneNational Forest east of YNP, for ex46
Schullery
ample) on their fires. Any fire rhat showed a
threat of growing beyond that size was suppressedimmediately.Both the newstrengthsand
remainingweaknesses
of interagencycooperation
would be highlighted by the fires.
In the firsr sixteenyears of the Yellowstone
plan's existence,235 fires werepermittedto burn
in the park under the terms of the plan (thousandsof lightning strikeswere observedto go
out withoutburninganymeasurable
acreage).
A
total of 34,157acreswas burned.The largest
single fire burned 7,400 acres.Only 15 burned
morethan 100 acres,and most burned an acre
or less.
The programwasviewedas a successin many
ways-restoration of fire as an ecologicalforce,
educationof the public regarding natural systems,increasedresearchopportunities-and the
experimentwasyielding significant information
o n f i r ee c o J o gi yn Y e l l o w s t o nvee g e t a t i olnl p e s .
In fact, only months before the fires of 1988,a
preliminary research report by Dr. Williarn
Romme,an independentfire ecologistfrom Fort
LewisCollege,Colorado,and Dr. Don Despain,
NPSplant ecologist,suggested
that the Yellowstoneareafire regime involvedrnanysmall fires
interspersedevery200400 yearsby massivefires
that Ewept across large portions of the park,
Rommeand Despainconcludedthat "Another
major burning cycle may begin within the next
century,as extensiveareas are now developing
flammablelate successionalforests." The fires
of 1988were not a big surprise to quite everybody.
Climateand Fire Conditions
The RockyMountainswerein a drought through
mosto[ the 1980s.The driest previousyear in
the history of the Fire ManagementPlan was
1981,whenprescribedfires burned20p,10acres.
The CYA experienceda peculiarweatherpattern during the drought.In the period 1982-1987,
annualprecipitationwaswell belowaverage,but
the shortfall (so to speak) occurred in winter.
Summersduring theseyearswereunusuallywet.
Precipitationin July averagedabout 200 percent
of normalover 1982-1987.
Summersare norrnally
dry in the CYA, so 200 percent of very little is
still very little. But it was more than enough to
dampennaturalfuels,From 1982to 1987,while
much of the West struggled with a famous and
economicallystressful drought, natural fires in
YellowstonePark only burned about 1,000acres.
Part of the lessonbeing learnedfrom the Fire
ManagementPlan was that typically fires will
burn a little bit here and there, but that there
is an imaginaryline or threshold,a combination
of conditionsproducedonly in extremelydry
years.0nce that thresholdis crossed,fires will
grow much more dramatically, and burn a lot
more landscape.Oneof the biggestlessonsofrhe
1988 fire seasonwas that that rhreshold is difficult to identify and the experts disagree on
where it is. Disagreementsaside,one thing was
clear:oncethe thresholdis crossed,the fires will
not be stoppedby conventionalfire fighting, and
may burn a wholelot more landscapethan managers anticipated or hoped for.
The 1988 Fire Season
Monitoring of fire conditions began in early
April, when USFS and NPS fire specialistsactivated their regular systemof fire indices.Wellestablishedconventionsin the firefighting community include measurementof a wide variety
of conditions, including rnoisture content of
various fuels, man- and lightning-causedfire
risks,spreadcomponent(a measureof the speed
with which a fire would travel if started),energy
release component (a measure, in simplistic
terms,of how hot a fire burns,which affectswhat
sort of fire fighting equipmentmust be available),
and others.By June 15, eighteensuch indices
were being computed daily at twelve locations
in the park. By July l, they werebeing computed
at twenty-sixlocations.An unfortunateand misleading implication of the term, "Let-burn
policy," usedborh within and withourthe agency,
is that managersput their feet up in their office
and do nothing. Quite the contrary; monitoring
is a major, daily occupation during any fire
season.
The fire seasonbegannormally. Long range
droughtindicessuggested
that the GYA wasin
at least a moderale drought by the end of April,
but local conditionsin the park revealedthe complexity of interpreting such information. Rainfall was above averagein April (155 percent of
normal)and May (l8l percent).
During lateMay
and June sometwenty fires started,and I I went
out on their own. The others behavedmore or
lessas fires had in earlier years.But June rainfall wasonly twentypercentof normal;sometime
in earlyJuly, it appears,the theoreticalthreshold
mentionedearlierwas crossed.
The critical period of decisionmaking, as
identified by post-firereview boards,managers,
and other observers,
wasroughlyJuly I until July
21. By July 15,whena total of 8,600acreshad
YellowstoneFires
47
a
r
f*{
,. . ,,
figure 2. Satellirevi€,Yof fires on 7 Sept€mber1988.Besid€sth€ fires in rhe GreaterYellorvetoneArea (upper cornet of Wyoming), orher fires are visible in ldaho (upper left), Utah (lower center),and smokefrom a major Montana fire crosses
the lop of the inage.
been burned in the park, NPS and USFS fire
specialistsand administrators were aware thal
weatherconditionswere extremelydangerous,
but it remained unclear to many just what the
dangermeant.On July 21, NPS managersde'
cided to suppressall existing and ne\,efires as
resourceswould allov. On that day, the total
perimeter of all fires encloseda little less than
17,000acres.
It is unlikely that the eitreme drynessalone
would have been enoughto create the situation
that next developed.In July, August, and September, a series of six dry cold fronts passed
through the Yellowstonearea, with winds of 40
to 60 miles per hour that fanned the fires and
48
Schullery
movedthem great distancesvery quickly. It was
during theseepisodesof high wind that the fires
performed most spectacularly,and ate up the
most fuel.
Extreme fire behavior became nearly the
order of the day, asfires ran asmuch as I0 miles
in a day,sendingembersasmuch asa mile and a
half aheadof the main fire to create dozensof
"spot fires." The presenceof so many spotfires,
along with the rapid and wide advanceof the
main fires, made it impossibleto fight the fires
head-onwithout risking many lives.Hundredsof
miles of fire lines wereconstructed,but with the
spotting behavior fires routinely jumped usual
barriers such as rivers and roads. Standard
hand-or bulldozer-builtlines were no barrier at
all. Among the examplesof black humor (an appropriate term, if ever there was one) with firefighters vas, "What's black on both sides and
brown in the middle?" The answer:a bulldozer
line in Yellowstone.
Fire experlsfound lhemselvesusing terms
like "slopover" to describea huge 15,000-acre
burn that appearedon the edgeof the North Fork
Fire. The scale of the fire events regularly exprojeclions.
ceeded
until lo manylhe entiresummer had an unreal quality.
By September
26, the perimeterof burnsin
the GYA was i.38 million acres.Fifiy fires had
been ignited by lightning, of which eight were
still consideredalive,though afier that date they
madeno more of the dramaticruns that had been
seenduring the summer,whenthousandsof acres
of forest were eatenup in hours. At the peak of
fire fighting efforts, 9,500 firefighters (civilian
and military), dozensof helicopters,and more
than 100 fire trucks from many stateswere involvedin a massiveinteragencystrugglewith the
fires. The cost is now estimated at about $120
million.
Media attention, and to a great extent fire
suppressionefforts, concentrat€don the protection of various developmentsin the park and
communitiesnearby.The resultantmedia coveragewasperhapsinevitably confused,as so many
storiesand issueswere under attention at once
that any brief report wasalmostcertain to muddle them. A brief chronologyof the major fires
may help set the stage.
Maior Fires
The huge North Fork fire, whosepe meter eventually exceeded500,000 acres, was a humancausedfire started on June 22 in Targhee National Forest just west of YellowstoneNational
Park(noneof the human-caused
fires in the GYA
in 1988originatedas prescribedmanagements€t fires; they were all accidental fires, fought
from the outser).It quickly burned into the park
and eventuallythreateneddevelopmentsat 0ld
Faithful, Madison Junction, Norris, Canyon
Village, Mammoth Hor Springs (NPS headquarters),and Tower-Roosevelt,
and the communities of West Yellowstone, and Gaidiner,
Montana.
The ShoshoneFire, a naturally causedfire,
sta ed in southernYellowstonePark on June 23
where it wasmanagedas a natural fire. It grew
to a perimeterof more than 24,000acresbefore
being adminisrrativelyredefined as part of the
Snake River Compler of fires, whose total perimeter acreagewasmore than l?2,000.By then
it had threatenedGrant Village, a park development on the shoreof YellowstoneLake.
The Storm CreekFire, a lightning fire srarred
on July 3 on the Custer National Forest north
of YellowstonePark, was at first managedas a
prescribednatural tire under the termsof the national forest's fire managementplan, but after
two weekswasredefinedas a "wildfire," that is
a fire no longer within managementprescriptions,It wasthen fought,but grewto a perimeter
the communities
of95,000acresand threatened
of Silver Gate and Cooke City, Montana.
The Clover/MistFire, startedby lighrning on
July 9 in easternYello*stonePark,wasoriginally
managedas a prescdbednatural fire under the
terns of the park's fire managementplan, then
wasfought. It grer+to a perimeter of more than
319,000acresin the park and in ShoshoneNational Forest eastof the park, and showedsigns
of rhreateningSilver Gate and CookeCity, then
ran east and burned several structures in the
Crandall/Squaw
Creekarea of Wyoming.
The Hellroaring Fire, a human-causedfire
stafied on August 15 oll the Callatin National
Forest north of Yellowstone Park, eventually
burned a perimeter acreageof 66,000 acres.
fire originatThe Huck Fire.a human-caused
ing on August 20 on the John D. Rockefeller
Memorial Parkway between Yellowstone and
Crand Teton National Parks,eventuallygrew to
a peimeter of more than 106,000acresbefore
it was administrativelyredefined as part of the
Huck/Mink Complex, whose total ac.eage was
more than 228,000.Il requiredthe evacuation
of Flagg Ranch,a developmentjust south of
YellowstonePark.
Several smaller fires added to the total
acreage.Merely that the Fan Fire, for example,
which burned a perimeterof 21,000acresin
Yellowstone Park, can be referred to as a
"smaller" fire suggeststhe tremendousscaleof
this event.
Even the mosl casualreadingof this summary
of the maior fires will revealthe extent to which
YellowstoneFires
49
this wasan intelagencyemergency,aswell as the
extent to {hich the fires were managed under
a varietyof policies.Public perception,created
largelyby the media,was simpler.
In manymediareports,especiallyon television, all fires were usually referred to as the
"Yellowstone fires." Of course they all did occur in the GYA, and thus were more or less
"YellowYellowstonefires. But to the public,
stone" meansYellowstonePark, and the distinction betweenfires on NPS land and those on
USFS land was easily lost. As a result, all the
fires, including those caused accidentally by
humansand thosecausedby lightning in national
forestsnear the park (theselwo categoricsinclude five of the sevenlargest fires in the GYA),
{ere frequentlyattributed ro the NPS Fire ManagementPlan.Therewasa commonpublicmisconceptionthat all of these fires were, in other
words,the resultof the park service'spolicy of
letting fires burn.
There was also confusion over the Fire
ManagementPlan.The NPS "let-burn policy"
w a sb l a m e d( i n i n t e r r i e ww
s i t h l o c a lc i t i z e n si .n
the statementsof politicians, in editorials, and
in somehilarious political cartoons)for the continued growth of the fires throughout the summer and fall, with the implication that the NPS
continuedto allow the fires to burn, though full
suppressionwas the order of the day after July
of devel21. Televisioncoverageof evacuations
opmentsand nearby communitieswasregularly
linked to discussionsof NPS fire policy, when
only one park development,
Grant Village,was
evacuatedbecauseof a fire originating as a
natural fire under the NPS Fire Management
Plan. AII other evacuationsin or near the park
fires. Thus it was
re6ultedfrom human-caused
that NPS fire policiesappearedsolelyresponsible for what wasreportedas a grantmanagement
fiasco and ecological tragedy.
of
Oneof the many fascinatingconsequences
the fires doesinvolvemediahandlingof the story.
The Yellowstonefires have few equals among
natural resourceissuesfor the amount of media
attention they generated. Among the investigatorsstudyingthe enormousamountof material
generatedin the pressand electronicmedia is
Dr. ConradSmith of the 0hio StateSchoolof
Journalism, who is conducting quantitative
studiesof emphasisand accuracyin both agency informationhandlingand media reporting
50
Schullery
during the fires. His preliminary work suggests
to him a gradual improvement over the course
of the summer in the quality and accuracy of
reporting; perhaps both agencies and media can
benefit from this sort of analysis.
Effects and Aftereffects
Public interest in the CYA, especiallyin
Yellowstone Park, following the fires has
amountedto a headwarmingoutpouringof syrnpathy and offersof support.It hasbeenestimated
that as many as30 percentof all Americansvisit
Yellowstone during their lives, so the park is
familiar to many million people.Numerouscorporations, institutions, organizations, and individuals have offered help of one kind or
another.Much of the help offeredis inappropriate, such as pledgesof non-nativeseedlings
frorn other parts of the country, but the agencies involved recognizethe most important fact
in this public reaction:Yellowstoneis a remarkably well knownand loved place.NPS and USFS
officials have establishedofficesto deal with offers of assistance,and to channel them in
meaningful directions.
This array of public interest,someinformed
and somenot, points up the challengesfaced by
agencies in what is awkwardly called the
"recovery" process.For the USFSlandswhere
timber harvestsor other commercialuses may
prevail,there is indeed somethingto recover
from. Active reseedingand revegetationmay be
useful in some places. For NPS lands where
visitor facilities such as trails, picnic areas,or
buildingswere damaged,recoveryalsoseem6an
Figure 3. In the foreground is a thirteen-yearregrowth of
lodg€pol€pine following a 1954fire in YNP. This
picture was talen in l%7. NPS photo by J. R.
Douslass.
appropriate word. But for the large areas of
wilderness
burnedby natural fires. recoveryis
even
by definitionthejob of nature.Rheloricians
argue that it is inappropriate to describe a
naturallyburnedforestas onein needof recovery
at all; it is merely a forest in a different stage
of its life, a stagethrough which it passedmany
timesprehistorically,during previousfire cycles.
But the language of recovery is nol easily
dismissed.Both managersand commercialinterests hopidg to persuadepotential visitors that
Yellowstoneis still worth seeingare relying heavily on a "rebirth rhetoric," emphasizingthe
estheticexcitement of seeing the CYA "come
backto life," whenat leastthe YellowstonePark
portion of the CYA has just experiencedan especiallyactivestagein its primitive life, of which
fire was a major element.
Recoveryneeds,that is actual physicalwork
to be done,are indeedextensive
in both YellowstonePark and in surrounding national forests.
In the GYA some850 miles of hand-dugfirelines
had to be restored,to avoid erosion and incursionsof exoticplantson exposedsoils.About 137
milesof bulldozerlines (32 in YellowstonePark)
neededsimilar treatment,Dozens of "spike
camps," helicopter landing sites,and hundreds
of smaller disturbancesalso needed to be repaired.In many instances,the efforts of fighting
the fires created more enduring disruptions of
settinesthan did the fires. Much of the work of
Figure4. Bulldozer danage. It is a common erpression
anong fir€ €cologiststhat fire suppr€ssionactivities
can do longer-tern damagethsn rh€ fire itself. In
1943,this bulldozer line wasdug near Lewi: Lale
in south€rn YNP. Thirty y€ars lat€r, when this
photo was ralen, native vegetationhad made liltle progress in recolonizing the cuq non-native
grass€splanted on the cut in 1943renain the onlt
signilicant cover. NPS photo by Don Despain.
restoring fire lines and rehabilitating campsites
was accomplishedbefore winter snors came.
Structural losseswere light, limited ro about
55 small buildings, cabins, trailers, and outbuildings. Other losses included some small
bridges, 8 miles of main power lines, numerous
picnic areas,and relatedserviceareasin the park.
There is a widespreadif informal feelingthat the
massive firefighting efforts probably did not
significantly reduce the acreage burned, but
there is also consensusthat firefighter's efforts
to protect propedy and human life were remarkFirefighting activitiesresultedin
ably successful.
many minor injuries to personneland one fatality
was reported; a firefighter was killed by a falling snag in Wyoming,
Figur€ 5. Bul elk feedingon unburnedgrassesin burn area,
YNP; vildlife frequendy fed and bedded down
within sight of fire. NPS photo by Jin Peaco.
Wildlife losseswerealsolight: the large herds
of grazinganimalsthat are a major allraclion
of the GYA displayedbehaviornot at all like that
in traditional pofirayals of forest fires, such as
the movie"Bambi." Animalswereonly caught
by fires whenthe fires madefast,wide runs. Most
of the time, animalsmoreor lesssteppedaside.
Many photographsand films have alreadybeen
publishedof bison and elk grazingcalmlyin a
meadowwhile the forestbehindthem burns.Suryeys of carcassesin YellowstonePark revealed
257 dead elk (lessthan I percent of the park's
summeringpopulation of about 32,000),9 bison
(park population-2,700), 2 moose,and 4 mule
deer.Most apparenrlydiedof smokeinhalation.
Similarlylight losses,includingat Ieast6 black
bears, were reported on surrounding national
forests.No threatenedor endangeredanimals
have been reDortedlost.
YellowstoneFires
5l
Of greaterco[cern has been lossof winter
range for ungulates.About ll percentof the
winter range (160,000 acres) in the GYA was
burned. 0f that I I percent,8 wascanopyor surface burn in forest, and 3 waseither meadowor
sage/grassland.
On some of the smaller ranges,
percentageburned is as high as 50 percent.
By early winter of 1988,somepublic interest
emergedin the possibilityof supplemenralfeeding of ungulates,but the USFS,NPS, and the
MontanaDepartmentof Fish,Wildlife & Parks
(MDFWP) all have expressedoppositionto feeding for a variety of ecological and scientific
reasons.Their position wassupported by an independentpanelof ecologists
assembled
in November to assessthe GYA ecologicalsituation.
Supplementalfeeding of park wildlife is an
engagingissue,part of the complexsuiteof issues
surroundingmodernparks and their derermined
tend€ncytowardnonconsumptive
usesof park resoures.In most wildlife managementsituations,
winter feeding of animals is recognizedas a political and sociologicalissue rather than as an
ecologicalone. That is, feeding can be used to
prevent malnutrition mortality or to manipulate
animalmovements,but the needto do so is based
on humanneeds-humanitarian concernsto prevent deathof animals,or sportingneedsto maintain high huntable populations-rather than on
any intrinsic need of the animal population.
Winter monality is a reality of virtually all northern grazing herds.In YNP, where the goal is to
Eaintain natural processes,
feedingwould shortcircuit the processesof population control and
natural selection that occurred in this settine
prehistorically.
andthusbetrayrhepark'sgreatei
goal.Herd numbersfluctuatewith environmental
conditions,which included pdmitive fire eyents
on the samescaleas the fires of 1988.For this
principle alone,feedingwas deemedinapproprlate.
Other supporting reasonsincluded the existenceof many researchprojectsinvolving park
animals, projects whose data basesand results
wouldbe seriouslycompromisedby suchartificial
manipulation;the heightenedrisk of disease
transmissionamonganimalsat feedingsites;and
the high price tag on such a program, conservatively estimatedfor the largest herd, the northern one, at about two million dollars.
52
Schullerv
Political and public pressure in favor of
feeding srill exists as of l/89, but it is still too
early in the winter for much attention to be
focussedon the subject.The heaviestmonality
among park animals occurs in late winter. The
seriesof mild wintersprior to 1988haveallowed
park anirnal populationsto grow, so evena normal winter will result in moltality, especially
among elk and bison, that may seem alarming
to the uniformed (the elk herd routinely experiencesl0 percent mortality during winter).
Now that the camerasare focussed,so to speak,
on Yellorf,stone,
it can be assumedthat any mortality will be of greater public interest rhan in
past years. Park service pundits already are
speaking gloomily about the possibility of
simplisticmediareporting on the agency's"Letdie" policy.
Preliminary mapping suggeststhat a maximum of l5 percentof the whitebarkpine in the
GYA wasburned:whitebarkpine nutsare an important food for grizzly bears,and more study
is necessaryto determinethe effectsof the loss
on the threatenedbear.
There has been general agreementamong
park scientistsand advisorsthar only for purposesof landscapingaround developments
(such
as to screen service facilities from roadways)
should any reseedingbe undertakenin Yellowstone Park. Extensivesoil testing, dolre as parr
of the first reconnaissancemapping in September, showedthat lessthan .l percent of the
soils in burned areas received hears exueme
enoughto kill seeds,roots, rhizomes,and olher
regeneratiyeplant partsmore than an inch under
the surface,By late September,newly-castlodgepole pine seedsin burned forestswere covering
the forest floor at densitiesranging from 50,000
to I million seedsper acre.Yellowstone's
long
historyof regowing its vegetationfollowingfires
seemedsufficient proof for most observersthat
the park's vegetationwould regrowat ils own
pace.
Other short-termecologicalconcernsinclude
increased erosion or sedimentation in many
streams.Levelsof erosionand sedimentationwill
dependupon the rate and amount of spring
s n o n m e lal n dp r e c i p i t a t i o a
nn
, de c o l o g i s gt se n erally agree that the long-term benefits of increasednutrientsreleasedby the fires will endch
many aquatic systems.Another concern is the
risk of non-natiye vegetation invading burns,
especiallyin wildernessareas.This is especially
a concern in the hundreds of miles of fireline
built during the fires,wherenativevegetationhas
beenremoyedor destroyedand soil is easilycolo n i z e db y n e w v e g e t a t i o nS.e d i m e n t a l i oenr. o sion,and invasionby non-nativeplants will, like
the other ecologicalissuesdiscussedearlier, require long-tern monitoring.
Social and Political Consequences
Formal reyiew of the fires, of fire fighting
logisticsand decisionmaking,and of fire policy,
will be underwaythroughout the winter of 1989.
There may be Congressionaloversighthearings
in late winter.
The fires that involvedinteragencyeffortsthat includesall of the large ones-have already
beeosubjectto technicalreviewby interagency
teams.The findings of these teams are difficult
to summarizebecauseeachfire wasso large,with
so many decisionsand logistical complications,
that eachteamaddressed
a uniquesetof issues.
For example,the team evaluating the fighting
of the Clover-Firegavelhe fire fighting agencies
high marks for protecting structures,coordinating military participation, training new fire
fighters, safety ("1/3 the normal injury rate"),
public relations(coordinatingfire activitieswith
local communities),and grizzly bear safety (an
unaccustomedhazard for most firefighters not
usedto having to protect their food at night), On
the other hand, the team observedthat NPS fire
managementguidelinesdid not include "circuit
breakers" to tell the agencyat what set of conditionsit wasno longersafeto allov fires to burn,
that in severalwayscommunicationsbetweenthe
NPS and the USFS vere inadequate,and that
thoughthe personnelon the fires werequalified,
therewereneverenoughof them.Oneinteresling
sidelightof thesefires is that there wereso many
of them at once that fire fighting resourceswere
often inadequate,or were shifted from one fire
to another as priorities changed.
The fundamentalnecessity
for somekind of
naturalfire policy seemsrecognizedby most participants in the scientific and political debates
now underway.The extent to which fires should
be allored to erercise their primitive prerogativesis hotly debated,and thoughthereappears
alreadyto be nearlya consensus
amongparticipantsin the political and scientificdialoguesthat
somesort of naturalfire policy is necessary,
there
is great differenceof opinion overwhat it should
be. The Yellowstonefires of 1988 revealedthe
extent to which a policy that seemsperfectly
workable for many years suddenlycan become
the center of giant conroversy. Critics of the
NPS policy say it should have been better designed to anticipate the unusual fire conditions
of 1988;defendersof the policy saythat building
fire policy aroundrhe extremeconditionsof 1988
wouldbe like a farmer managinghis bestbottomland in constantanticipationof a 100-yearflood.
A common thread in the current dialogues
is the fear thar while natural fire may be respectedin principle, it will be eliminatedin fact.
It is easy to imagine that the polirical process
may createa policy that in all respectsis a model
of approval-that expressesall the affirmative
sentimentsabout the importanceof allowingfire
to play its natural role in the dynamicprocesses
o f t h e n a t i o n apl a r k s - - b u t h a t i s s o r e s t r i c t i v e
in its "circuit breakers" that in fact no fire of
anyusefulsizecouldeverorcur.The sorlingoul
of thesedetailsand priorities promisesto be one
of the most interesting processesthe conservation movementhas witnessedin recentyears.
Even the scientific processof analyzingthe
fires promisesto be stirring, newsworthy,and
controversial,For example,during the fires,daily
reportsgaverough cstimatesof the per;meters
of the burns, emphasizingthat as much as half
of the areawithin the perimeterwasnot burned
(media reports typically quoted only the larger
number). By late September,these rough estimatessaid that 1.6 million acreshad been includedwithin fire perimeters,l.l million of which
was within the park. First estimatesof actual
burnedacreagewithin lre peiimetersin the park
werearrived at by seat-of-the-pants
guesstimates
by skilled observersin helicopters.The figure
they gavewas440,000.Then in late Octoberthe
first round of infrared aerialreconnaissance
mapping was completed,and it estimateda toral
burned acreagein the GYA of l.3B million acres,
and within the park of 995,000acres. Then in
early Decemberan EROSsatelliteimageanalysis
of the burnsestimateda bum acreageof 706,000
acresin the park. Thesenumbers,all derivedby
respectedmeans,differ so widely that further
confusion is sure to result.
Differencesin methodsexplainmuch of the
discrepancies.
For example,the resolutionof the
YellowstoneFires
53
:?,:
.-:1.:
'it, '
,'.tr'r-l
Figure 6. A€rial view of fire patches."Mosaic" of burns b€cam€th€ obj€ct of fascinarionfor fire fighters and yisirors alite
by the end of the sumner, as winds and vegerationdictated the movementsof fires leaving mired patchworksof
black and green acrossYellowston€.NPS phoro by Jin Peaco.
aerial mapping of Octoberis only 200 acreunits.
Firesfrequentlyburn in a "mosaic" pattern that
creates a variety of shapes and sizes of new
wildlife and plant habitats, and quite often the
"jigsaw puzzle" is composedof very
smallpieces,
eachonly a few acresin size.The EROSimagery,
on the other hand,is measuringunits of burnt
or non-burntland assmallas 30 meterson a side.
Also, the helicoprer guesstimates,flown in
smoky conditions, were rough counts only of
burnt forests,while the aerialreconnaissance
also
measuredground fires under green forest canopies; of the 995,000acres reported by the IR
aerial survey,367,000was ground fire under
forest canopy,and another 55,000was meadow
or sage/grassland.
No doubt upr"omingsurveys
will alsodiffer, and no doubt further public confusion will result,
Opportunities
Promotersof travel to the Yellowstoneregionare
emphasizingthe singular opportunity the fires
present:oniy once in scveralgenerationscan
yisitors yiew such a huge ecologicalunit "stai54
Schullery
ting over" this way.Other opportunitiesare also
presentedhere;scientific researchwill certainly
burgeon.The park currentlyhostssome200 governmentand independentresearchers
fron many
discipliueseachyear.YellowsronePark Chief of
ResearchJohn D. Varley estimatesthst number
may increaseby 50 percenr,
Opportunities for polirical haymaking and
axegrindingalso abound.The fires have already
generateda wild assortmentof commentaryand
polemic, as resource-orientedgroups and individuals work to affect public opinion and policy. The very volume and diversity of this flow
of talk probably is rhe best tempering influence
o n i t . a n d t h e b e s tg u a r a n l Fleh a l n o o n e v i e w point will dominate.
But for those who enjoy ecological consequencesmore than political and socialones,the
finest opportunity is the resource's.The biotic
communities of the GYA have just received a
dynamic jolt of prehistoric dimensions,and all
the membersof those communitieswill be doing all that evolution will allow to take advantageof the net order.For nalure,opportunity
rarely has knocked so loudly in Yellowstone.