Fire Shuts Down Headquarters at Yellowstone

Authorities ordered the evacuation of Yellowstone National Park headquarters at Mammoth Hot Springs as well as other populated areas Saturday, as wind-whipped wildfires raced across half of the nation’s oldest nature preserve.

As firefighters struggled in vain against rapidly spreading flames, members of a Cabinet-level fact-finding team dispatched by President Reagan toured the park and announced that two fresh Marine battalions would be dispatched from Camp Pendleton next week to join the 9,000 civilian and military personnel already battling blazes in and around the 2.25-million-acre park.

Secretaries Hear Complaints

The delegation, headed by Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel and Agriculture Secretary Richard E. Lyng, also found itself trying to hose down a firestorm of complaints from local residents who claim officials have botched efforts to stop the inferno.

At Mammoth, Yellowstone Chief Ranger Dan Sholly said the fire “continues to outfox us at every turn.” He said the 300 to 400 firefighters concentrated at the park headquarters had hoped to keep the flames on the other side of a ridge overnight “but Mother Nature had her own ideas” as winds “put a new (fire) front on us.”

Sholly said, “I don’t think we’ll lose any structures in Mammoth.” He said the crews hope to drop fire retardant on the area if the weather is clear today, a tactic they were unable to employ Saturday because of high winds and dense smoke. “Mammoth will get tested over the next few days,” Sholly said.

Overnight, winds gusting to 60 m.p.h. merged two of the largest blazes, which have turned the northern half of the park into a huge swath of devastation.

“Basically, now it’s one big fire, half the park,” said Christopher Comstock, a spokesman for the fire suppression team.

Light rains, the first in more than two months, fell over parts of the park Saturday. But the showers were so brief and light that they had virtually no effect on flames that were reportedly spreading at a fast rate of 5 m.p.h. to 6 m.p.h. across grasslands and 1.5 m.p.h. in thicker stands of lodgepole pines.

Officials expected their first victory against the summer firestorm this evening when they forecast containment of the 62,340-acre Hellroaring fire in the northernmost sector of the park. That fire started on Aug. 15 and was the first fire in the area that was aggressively fought with backfires.

Sholly said that scant rain bought firefighters precious time on the southern flank of the fire but “won’t make much difference.”

Comstock said that at one point the fire front sprawls across 20 miles of forests. “We don’t have enough personnel to put on it,” he said.

Officials already had closed Yellowstone to tourists, but Saturday they ordered a retreat for many park residents and employees.

At least two small trading posts were ordered evacuated and the 500 people of Gardiner just outside the park’s north gate were put on evacuation alert. Residents were told to pack up their cars, fill the tanks with gas and be prepared to leave if fire sirens sounded.

One fire camp also was ordered evacuated Saturday, not because of flames but because of grizzly bears. Comstock said the 20-man crew at the camp “took to the trees” overnight when a sow and two cubs plundered the camp in search of food. “We decided we didn’t have to have a camp there that badly,” he said.

At Mammoth, as many as 700 people who live and work around the historic headquarters complex were moved out Saturday, leaving a skeleton staff. By late afternoon, a thick haze of orange-tinged smoke and falling ash hung in the air as flames danced within one-half mile of the nearly century-old collection of 300 structures. Once an Army camp, the complex includes homes and dormitories for park workers, a hotel, restaurant and administration buildings. More than 50 fire engines stood at the ready as crews spread fire-resistant foam over buildings--some of which had flammable shake roofs.

The park archives were believed to be safe in the basement of a stone building, but valuable oil paintings were removed from the area Friday as a precaution.

As residents fled the complex, Park Supt. Robert Barbee also left the area to join Lyng, Hodel and other officials as they viewed the damage on a flight over the park and a drive to the famous Old Faithful geyser past miles of scorched timber.

At one point, a park spokesman said Barbee’s party had to halt and let a fire cross the road before they could drive on to West Yellowstone to join the Cabinet members.

Barbee has been a lightning rod for local residents who complain that he was slow to react to the worsening fire danger over the summer and let the situation get out of hand.

Speaking to reporters and irate residents at a meeting in West Yellowstone, Hodel acknowledged that, in hindsight, it may have been a mistake to adhere in the early summer to a 16-year-old park policy to let natural fires burn their course. But Hodel said a flood of recriminations now would only demoralize fire crews.

“The Monday morning quarterbacking which is taking place right now, I think, is tough on the people who are out there on the fire lines and who are really heroes,” he said.

In the face of mounting criticism, Hodel scrapped the park’s “let-burn” policy on July 22 and ordered a major assault on all blazes, no matter what the cause. On Saturday, he said he would also back a major effort to replant trees and other scorched vegetation even though that, too, would violate park policy against trying to undo damage done by natural calamities.

“The natural features of Yellowstone National Park are still here and they are not touched,” Hodel told the group. “They will be here next year for people to come and visit and enjoy.”

Lyng, whose department includes the U.S. Forest Service, defended officials against charges that they had mismanaged firefighting efforts and said the devastation was an unpreventable side effect of the drought.

“Considering the size and scope of the problem, the people who have been working on this here have been doing a superb job,” he said.

Residents in the crowd, many of them merchants whose livelihoods have been hurt by the drop in tourist trade caused by the fires, listened politely. But, afterward, they were clearly skeptical about what they heard.

“This was a sugar-coated Broadway show for the press to try to convince us of what a great job they’re doing, and that’s just horse-pucky,” said Ron Platt, who owns an electronics firm in West Yellowstone.

Carollee Christiansen, a local schoolteacher, added: “I think we’ve been lied to, and I don’t think they fought this aggressively. . . . I think he’s (Hodel) just trying to cover some butts.”