Yellowstone’s Fire Crews Guard Even a Single Tree

When a lightning bolt sent flames crackling from a cottonwood tree in Yellowstone National Park, half a dozen firefighters responded within minutes.

They were too late; the fire had been reduced to embers by heavy rain from the storm that got it going. But ever since blazes blackened nearly half of Yellowstone’s 2.2 million acres during the dry, hot summer of 1988, even a single burning tree quickly draws firefighters’ attention.

The heavily criticized “let it burn” plan under which fires caused by nature were left untouched unless they endangered people or structures has been suspended and is under review.

This year, firefighters have fought about a dozen fires, most of which were a quarter-acre or smaller and several of which involved just one tree.

The costs are high. The summer’s biggest fire, spotted July 5 near Yellowstone River, was contained at 220 acres by 315 firefighters, and the bill is expected to be around $750,000, said park spokeswoman Marsha Karle.

“When we have a big one where we bring in overhead and we bring in outside crews, that’s where it adds up real quick,” she said. “Any time you call in outside resources--retardant drops, smoke jumpers, helicopters, crews--it adds to the cost. Firefighting is an expensive business.”

At the height of the 1988 blazes, public and political outrage prompted the Interior Department to go back to its pre-1972 policy of fighting all fires.

The agency also mobilized a U.S. Forest Service-National Park Service team to analyze the “let it burn” policy. The team found the policy to be basically sound but asked for some refinements.

Steve Frye, a park ranger, said the proposed revisions, if adopted, will leave little room for guesswork when rangers decide which fires to fight.

Rangers would have to take into account recent rainfall, humidity, fuel moisture, wind speed, fuel types and the slope of the forest floor when deciding whether to fight fires, Frye said.

These factors have been considered in the past, but there were no predetermined limits that they had to fall within, he said.

It wasn’t always so complicated.

During the park’s first 100 years, rangers battled every fire they could reach.

Then in 1972, the National Park Service agreed to manage natural areas of Yellowstone as “vignettes of primitive America” and adopted the “let it burn” policy.

From 1972 to 1987, the policy guided action over 235 fires that burned roughly 34,000 acres, according to park records.

How soon the park’s firefighters will be given leeway in deciding which fires to fight, and which to leave alone, is difficult to gauge, Frye said.

“Our fire management plan is in the regional forester’s office for review at this point,” he said.

If an environmental assessment of the revisions is required, the plan may not take effect until next summer, Frye said.