Summer 2008 – 20 years after the cataclysmic fires in Yellowstone National Park, 1988. National Public Radio is commemorating this year with a series that will air in September, and Liane Hansen of Weekend Edition Sunday posted a couple times about her visit to the park.
This place is a geological and botantical mosaic. Canyons give way to meadows which lead to ancient lava flows.
The Salt Lake Tribune features another series on Yellowstone 20 years after the fires.
Despite all the vivid images of terror, chaos and destruction displayed during the cataclysmic 1988 wildfires here, the United States’ first and most widely recognized national park has returned to normal.
At least as normal as nature gets.
“Contrary to what a lot of people believe, fire is actually good for wildlife,” said Tom Olliff, chief of the Yellowstone Center for Resources. “It creates diverse habitats in both space and time.”
Olliff said the fires created open meadows next to stands of ancient lodgepole pines. Together, the habitats provide the necessities of shelter and food for a variety of animals.
Indeed, Yellowstone is a mosaic as Hansen said in her blog. The mosaic of geology helps create the mosaic of vegetation that defines the park. And these diverse habitats are healthy.
Both park managers and the public were afraid that non-native plants would take over in areas that were severely burned by the fire.
“The fire came through here and we had ash [about 18 inches] deep,” Roy Renkin, a Yellowstone fire behavior specialist, said during a tour of the “blowdown area” between the Norris and Canyon intersections in the park’s center. “This place looked like the bottom of a barbecue grill. It was nuked, there is no other description. People said we would be lucky to get anything to grow here. Now the quickest growing trees in the park are right here. Some are already 18 feet.”
Overall, the vegetation and animal life in Yellowstone made an impressive comeback in the 20 years since the 1988 fires. This has shown us that wildfire is not necessarily an enemy. Wildfires wreak havoc on landscapes, but are usually healthy processes for the ecosystems they encounter.
Karen
