Yellowstone Park Fires Provide Boost to Neighboring Counties

Four Wyoming counties surrounding Yellowstone National Park received an economic boost from the forest fires that raged in and around the park last year, according to a state report issued Friday.

Although the park’s tourist flow plummeted in August, September and October as the infernos charred thousands of acres, sales tax collections in Park, Teton, Sublette and Fremont counties showed an increase from a year earlier, the report said.

“On the premise that visitors were held rather ‘captive’ in Jackson, Cody and the surrounding area (because of park closures), and that thousands of firefighters were brought into the area, the boosted sales tax figures are fairly understandable,” it said.

Prepared by the Department of Administration and Fiscal Control’s Research and Statistics Division, the report said the four counties’ sales tax collections jumped 4.94% in June, July, August and October from the year before.

Statewide, sales tax collections through the same period were up 6.78%, the report said.

The four counties realized a 4.94% increase in sales tax collections, from $8.8 million during the period in 1987 to $9.2 million last year.

With roughly half of the 2.2-million-acre park blackened by the firestorms, Yellowstone tourism in 1988 was off 17.2% as a result of the fires, the report noted.