1988 was a landmark year in the history of Yellowstone
National Park. Forest fires have always occurred, Jeff
Henry tells us, so that natural features are named Burnt
Hole or Firehole River. Lightning would strike a major
tree, or native hunters might deliberately set fires to
clear trees and make more buffalo range. But THE YEAR
YELLOWSTONE BURNED was unprecedented.
I enjoyed the history of the area, as recorded by mountain
men and surveyors, and the vibrant photographs. Early in
the days of national parks, a wildfire was considered a
disaster; now a fire is seen as part of the ecological
cycle, clearing out old dead growth and making room for
fresh. Conifers grow quickly but rot slowly. Preserving
lives became the target of firefighter efforts. Jeff Henry
was a Park Service employee since 1977, and describes the
various fires which ignited during 1988. Deep snow had
fallen that spring, but by midsummer the high elevation
forest was tinder dry. Jeff found that many major trees
had
died, from a combination of drought stress and pine bark
beetles. Fires were named for the area where they started,
such as Fan or Clover-Mist. Vice-President George Bush had
been scheduled to go fly-fishing in the Clover-Mist fire
area; he had to cancel. As the fires expanded, enormous
mushroom clouds were produced by the firestorms.
Jeff explains the meaning of firefighter terms such as
ladder fuels, torching and crown fires. He describes the
work of preparing to block the path of a fire or
struggling
against a blaze by ground crews, smokejumpers and air
services. The fate of animals too is recorded; as best the
rangers could establish few bears were killed. Jeff calls
it miraculous that no person was killed in 1988, while a
special fight was put up to save historic buildings.
The maps at the start of each chapter impress upon the
reader how a couple of separate fires enlarged and
converged, until almost the whole region was burning
simultaneously. 25,000 firefighters were involved that
summer, and only the snow of September quenched the
blazes.
Studies of the effects and regrowth were conducted, as
plants and new trees grew. Jeff Henry reckons that THE
YEAR
YELLOWSTONE BURNED was made inevitable by warming and
drying climate in the region, and he warns that either
forests will not grow so well in a drier future, or those
that do grow could blaze again. I found this study
fascinating as a personal record of nature and of human
endeavour. The many spectacular photos alone are well
worth
a look.
The Yellowstone fires of 1988 consumed nearly 800,000
acres—36 percent of the park. In the years following,
spectacular wildflowers rose from the ashes and trees
rapidly reclaimed the landscape.
In this twenty-five-year look back at the fires, author
and
photographer Jeff Henry recalls not only the summer of
1988,
when he witnessed and photographed nearly every aspect of
the fires, but also the years since as nature healed the
charred landscape.
A beautiful book that depicts nature as simultaneously
malevolent and beneficent, The Year Yellowstone Burned
demonstrates the resilience of one of our continent’s most
dynamic ecosystems.
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