Gale Winds Expected to Fan Blaze Into Frenzy : Fire’s ‘Worst Day’ Menaces Yellowstone

Firefighters braced for the worst day yet in their frustrating battle to save this scenic treasure, as an approaching cold front was expected to trigger near gale force winds today and whip several huge blazes into a frenzy.

Flames were steadily gaining on several populated areas, among them park headquarters at Mammoth Hot Springs. Officials, who ordered evacuations from two small nearby communities earlier in the week, were considering the possibility of evacuating Mammoth, though it had not been ordered yet. Park spokeswoman Joan Anzelmo said the winds would determine whether the administrative staff would be forced to flee to neighboring Gardiner, Mont.

Brian Avery, a top fire suppression official here, said wind gusts of 60 m.p.h. could produce firestorms of swirling burning embers hot enough to melt steel. By day’s end, he predicted, wind-swept flames would ravage a minimum of 150,000 previously untouched acres of forest--an area nearly five times the size of Los Angeles.

‘Worst Day’

“It will be the worst day that we’ve seen on this fire and probably memorable,” said Avery, situation leader for a firefighting army that has grown to 9,000 civilian and military personnel. “This situation is really unprecedented in modern times.”

Meanwhile, about 300 miles to the northwest in Montana’s Glacier National Park, a firefighter was killed by a falling tree, becoming the fifth person to die in wildfires that have charred 3.8 million acres of forests and rangeland in the West this year.

Authorities had been desperately hoping for a break in the weather to check the wildfires, which have scorched more than 1.2 million acres in the vicinity of the country’s oldest national park, including a third of the tinder-dry timberland within park borders.

Instead, earlier predictions of weekend rain or snow were dropped from the forecast, which called for steadily increasing southwest winds with gusts reaching 50 to 60 m.p.h. by mid-afternoon. No significant precipitation has been recorded here since Memorial Day.

As they prepared for the onslaught, officials also awaited the arrival of a Reagan Administration fact-finding team that was scheduled to visit the fire area, including the famous Old Faithful geyser complex, which was singed but not seriously damaged on Wednesday.

Among the traveling party are Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel and Agriculture Secretary Richard E. Lyng, whose agencies administer national park and forest lands. They may be confronted by local residents who claim federal authorities aggravated the fires by deliberately allowing blazes ignited by lightning to burn for several weeks this summer despite a crippling drought.

Hodel announced an end to the so-called “let-burn” policy July 22.

For the first time in its history, all campgrounds and lodges in the entire 2.25-million-acre park in the northwest corner of Wyoming were closed to visitors Friday and officials said the park was likely to remain off limits at least through the weekend.

“To the best we know, we have never done this,” National Park Service spokeswoman Debbie Rockwell said of the total shutdown of campgrounds and lodges at the 116-year-old park. Normally, some campgrounds and lodges remain open year round.

As the fire raced through an ever-widening swatch of land, concern mounted over the fate of the elk, bison, deer, grizzly bear and other wild animals that live in the park. Small elk herds--seemingly unfazed by the nearby inferno--could be seen grazing casually in untouched grasslands near Old Faithful. But naturalists said it was too early to tell whether wildlife had been seriously affected by the fires or whether their natural food sources had been seriously harmed.

Harold Picton, a biologist at Montana State University, said some bear habitat had been damaged but said there was also evidence the grizzlies had adapted their diets over the summer to cope with the drought, switching from tasty but hard-to-find ants to more plentiful wasps and yellow jackets. Winter range land for grazing animals has suffered drought damage but not much fire damage as of yet, Picton said.

As for human park dwellers, some of them gathered in West Yellowstone, just outside the west gate, to mingle with the curiosity seekers and disappointed tourists and wait for news of the fire’s progress. Though authorities said the town, a tacky tangle of motels and curio shops, would escape fire damage, smoke from nearby blazes was so thick that a haze permeated hotel rooms, restaurants and other buildings.

Information Center

Officials set up a makeshift information center in a fly-fishing school and it was there that visitors as well as residents clustered to get the latest fire updates and to, by and large, belittle the government’s firefighting strategy.

“How can you justify burning down a forest in the name of research and experimentation?” asked Lorents Grossfield, a Montana cattle rancher who drove 150 miles with his wife, Sydney, to get as close as they could to the park. The couple met in 1967 when he was a bellman and she ran a concession counter at Old Faithful Lodge.

“Most people who live in this area have a special feeling for Yellowstone,” Grossfield said. “It’s pretty traumatic to watch it go.”

Sheila Hanna, who manages a souvenir shop, said the “let burn” policy had not only proved shortsighted but also inconsistent with other park operations. “They’ve managed everything in there--where you can build buildings, where you can camp, where you can hike,” she said. “I think they could manage a fire, too. Another 100 years from now when all the trees have finally grown back, we’re not going to be around to enjoy them.”

Hanna said the fire had drastically cut summer tourism, the economic lifeline for most merchants in the area. Still, she said, her own business was going strong, thanks largely to a huge influx of out-of-town firefighters who gobbled up fire souvenirs which imaginative shopkeepers quickly cranked out.

Among the most popular: A T-shirt that depicts a pair of fat and happy bears gnawing on some large bones. “Send more firefighters,” the caption on the shirt implores. “The last ones were delicious.”