Yellowstone fires of 1988

Yellowstone fires of 1988
Fires approach the Old Faithful Complex on September 7, 1988
Date(s)	June 14, 1988 (1988-06-14) – November 18, 1988 (1988-11-18)[1]
Location	Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Statistics
Total fires	250[2]
Burned area	793,880 acres (3,213 km2)[3]
Impacts
Deaths	2 civilians
Non-fatal injuries	Unknown
Damage	>$120 million (1988 USD)[4][5]
Ignition
Cause	42 by lightning, 9 by humans

The Yellowstone fires of 1988 collectively formed the largest wildfire in the recorded history of Yellowstone National Park in the United States. Starting as many smaller individual fires, the flames quickly spread out of control due to drought conditions and increasing winds, combining into several large conflagrations which burned for several months. The fires almost destroyed two major visitor destinations and, on September 8, 1988, the entire park was closed to all non-emergency personnel for the first time in its history.^[6] Only the arrival of cool and moist weather in the late autumn brought the fires to an end. A total of 793,880 acres (3,213 km²), or 36 percent of the park, burned at varying levels of severity.^[3]

At the peak of the firefighting effort, more than 9,000 firefighters were assigned to the fires in the park, assisted by dozens of helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft which were used for water and fire retardant drops. With fires raging throughout the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and other areas in the western United States, the staffing levels of the National Park Service and other land management agencies were inadequate for the situation; more than 4,000 U.S. military personnel were soon brought in to assist in wildfire suppression efforts. The firefighting effort cost $120 million ($310 million in 2024).^[4] Structure losses were minimized by concentrating firefighting efforts near major visitor areas, and eventually totaled $3.28 million ($8 million as of 2024).^[7] No firefighters died while fighting the Yellowstone fires, though there were two fire-related deaths outside the park.

Before the late 1960s, fires were generally believed to be detrimental to parks and forests, and management policies were aimed at suppressing fires as quickly as possible. However, as the beneficial ecological role of fire became better understood in the decades prior to 1988, a policy was adopted of allowing natural fires to burn under controlled conditions, which proved highly successful in reducing the area lost annually to wildfires.

In contrast, in 1988, Yellowstone was overdue for a large fire, and, in the exceptionally dry summer, many smaller "controlled" fires combined. The fires burned discontinuously, leaping from one patch to another, leaving intervening areas untouched. Intense fires swept through some regions, burning everything in their paths. Tens of millions of trees and countless plants were killed by the wildfires, and some regions were left looking blackened and dead. However, more than half of the affected areas were burned by ground fires, which did less damage to hardier tree species. Not long after the fires ended, plant and tree species quickly reestablished themselves, and native plant regeneration has been highly successful.

The Yellowstone fires of 1988 were unprecedented in the history of the National Park Service and led to many questions about existing fire management policies. Media accounts of mismanagement were often sensational and inaccurate, sometimes wrongly reporting or implying that most of the park was being destroyed.^{[citation needed]} While there were temporary declines in air quality during the fires, no adverse long-term health effects have been recorded in the ecosystem and, contrary to initial reports, few large mammals were killed by the fires, though there was a subsequent reduction in the number of moose.