Yellowstone Inferno Skirts Old Faithful

A pall of smoke from a dozen wildfires raging over more than 80,000 acres hung over Yellowstone National Park in northwest Wyoming Tuesday, but winds drove the flames past the famed Old Faithful geyser area.

More than 1,700 firefighters battled the blazes, including 1,000 crew members massed near the 5,700-acre North Fork fire in case it made a run to the east toward the most famous of the park’s 3,000 geysers and hot springs.

“With current and predicted conditions, the fire will continue to burn to the northeast and miss the Old Faithful area--go to the north of it,” Bill Schreier, a Park Service spokesman, said.

Yellowstone spokeswoman Joan Anzelmo called it the “worst fire season in park history.”

“There has not been a drought like this in a hundred years,” she said. “This is the driest we’ve ever seen. The conditions are tinderbox perfect for new fires to light from lightning strikes.”

Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel made plans to tour Yellowstone by helicopter today to get a first-hand view of the devastation.

Brush, timber and forest blazes were also crackling out of control in Montana, Colorado, Utah, Oregon, Nevada and Alaska--where 50 fires have rampaged over 1.2 million acres. Only 19 of the Alaska fires were being fought.

Park Visitors Undeterred

Yellowstone’s rash of blazes filled the nation’s oldest national park with haze and smoke. But visitors continued to flock to the park, even though nearly 40 miles of road and two big campgrounds at its south end have been closed.

The biggest Yellowstone fire was the 46,000-acre Clover Mist fire, which spread into the Shoshone National Forest to the east and was threatening cabins on its southern flank.

The only blaze near a developed area was the 9,900-acre Shoshone fire. It was burning within a few hundred yards of Yellowstone’s Grant Village complex, which was closed along with two campgrounds.

Firefighters doused the roofs of a visitor’s center, restaurant and 300-unit lodge to keep flying embers from setting the structures ablaze.

Also closed were 22 miles of road from the south entrance to West Thumb and 16 miles of road from Old Faithful to West Thumb.

The nation’s biggest fires were in Alaska. A 323,000-acre wind-whipped fire was raging in the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge 60 miles north of Fairbanks, and a blaze in the Selawik National Wildlife Refuge grew to 207,800 acres despite being dampened by nearly half an inch of rain.

At least nine different blazes scorched more than 20,000 acres of timber and grassland in Montana. Oregon firefighters made good progress on two major fires and began to battle a third blaze, with the three fires scorching more than 1,000 acres.

Near Canon City, Colo., a stubborn brush fire was burning over 2,000 acres. And lightning strikes in Nevada ignited more than 25 brush and forest fires. The biggest was 200 acres at the north end of Smith Valley.