Forest fires are not, as we have discussed, intrinsically bad, but when
they grow to extreme sizes they too can be greatly damaging. Yellowstone
1988 is an example of this. That year more than one third of Yellowstone
National Park burned.
This fire raged throughout Yellowstone and beyond it's boundaries from July 14 through October 1, charring nearly 800,000 acres, 36 percent of the park. In addition more than 600,000 acres were burned in the surrounding forests. To put this in perspective, that same year only 2 million acres burned in the rest of the continental U.S. More than 25,000 people were summoned to help put out this vast blaze, to little avail until the weather changed in the firefighter's favor.
Why did such a expanse of Yellowstone have to burn? Was it due to mankind's inability to fight back fires? No, indeed, one could argue that it was mankind's ability to fight fires that caused such a blaze in the first place. Prior to the fires of 1988 Yellowstone was, as one writer put it, "ripe to burn." The understory plants, those that run close to the ground, had long since failed to get enough light from above due to the density and the uniformity of the tree coverage, and thus formed a nice mass of dry dead plant matter. Too, the smaller trees that could not compete, for whatever reason, died where they stood, smaller image of the trees that stole their sunlight. Also the trees that had fallen over the years, for whatever reason, had collected, serving few important roles in the surrounding wildlife, thus creating a large mass of dry wood. Thus when the fires of 1988 started it is little surprise that, with the help of advantageous natural conditions, the fire quickly burnt out of control.
But why was there such a stockpile of tinder, kindling and bulkwood? This is because Yellowstone had not burnt for quite a while, certainly not since it's establishment in 1972. Sure there had been small, allowed, fires but, by-and-large, there had been no large sweeping fires (largely because of prevention on the part of mankind) that nature needs periodically to cleanse itself. For a area like Yellowstone that cleansing must occur every 200 to 300 years.
Now Yellowstone is a beautiful as ever, the foliage is growing back vibrantly and the wildlife was hardly phased (a single digit percent mortality was blamed on the fire). The fire had the effect that was intended by nature, everything was revived and given another chance.
Yellowstone burning at night.