Yosemite Battle Reflects Policy Shift : Fire: There was no doubt the blaze had to be knocked down. A new approach was implemented after 1 million acres in Yellowstone National Park were allowed to burn in 1988.

For firefighters and the public, the raging forest fires in Yosemite National Park that prompted the evacuation Friday of thousands of tourists are a frightening replay of the wildfires that ravaged Yellowstone in 1988.

In each case, one of the nation’s premier natural wonders was placed at risk by a conflagration.

In each case, the fires were ignited by lightning and fueled by a tinderbox of drought-stressed trees and vegetation.

But that is where the comparison ends.

From the very beginning, there was never any doubt that the Yosemite fire had to be knocked down. There was no rekindling of the Yellowstone controversy over whether human beings should manage the environment or allow nature to take its course.

Such questions--fraught with overlays of scientific and ethical considerations--sparked a national debate over the National Park Service’s fire response policies at Yellowstone that eventually resulted in the blackening of 1 million of the park’s 2.2 million acres.

It also resulted in a major modification of the park service’s so-called “let burn” policy last year when the Bush Administration restricted the number of natural fires that will be allowed to burn unchallenged.

But even without the Yellowstone controversy, the response at Yosemite would have been immediate for a number of practical reasons, officials said.

Lives and property were immediately at risk.

“These fires have been managed as wildfires from the very beginning,” said Thomas Gavin, a fire management specialist with the National Park Service in San Francisco.

In addition, another set of circumstances--the availability of manpower, weather conditions and the drought all called for vigorous firefighting efforts under post-Yellowstone guidelines, National Park Service officials said.

There were few disagreements, even from two leading environmental groups that have closely followed the controversy--the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society.

Patricia Schifferle of the Wilderness Society said there is no disputing that fire is essential to the ecological health of forests.

But, she said, “Whenever there’s a threat to life, property, buildings, both National Park Service policy and we agree you have to go in there and protect these people and control the fire.”

Officials said Friday that it was the 2,000-acre blaze at Kings Canyon National Park--not the Yosemite fires--that emerged as the first major test of the post-Yellowstone fire suppression policy.

Before the Yellowstone controversy, natural fires were allowed to burn unless they threatened property or public safety.

But, under a new policy announced last year, the Bush Administration placed conditions on allowing natural fires to burn themselves out.

The Kings Canyon National Park fire is a case in point. Located in the remote high country, that fire was allowed to burn “naturally” for the past three weeks. On Thursday night, however, the fire was redesignated as a “wildfire,” necessitating fire suppression efforts, even though buildings and public safety were not immediately threatened.

“Part of the aftermath of the Yellowstone fire is that if the regional situation becomes too severe, everything will be suppressed,” said David Parsons, a National Park Service research scientist at Kings Canyon National Park.

Part of the park service’s policy is to suppress any fire that threatens “highly significant resources,” including the giant sequoias at Tuolumne and Merced groves. Early Friday evening, one park service official said that the Merced Grove, which contains about 20 giant sequoias with diameters of 10 feet or more, was threatened.

While no plants or animals on the threatened or endangered species list were in immediate danger, there is concern that the billowing smoke may put stress on the peregrine falcon. In addition, spotted owls have been seen at 40 different locations within the park, some of them nesting sites.

Some of the owl habitats have been destroyed, wildlife biologist Steve Thompson reported.

Also of concern is the effect of firefighting efforts on the land.

“This area will recover very quickly. Our biggest concern after these fires will be to go in and try to erase the effects we have had on the land in our fire suppression action. We’ll try to obliterate the bulldozer scars,” Gavin said.

Unlike the U.S. Forest Service, the park service will not artificially reseed barren land to prevent erosion, except in the most severe cases.

“Make no doubt about it. The Yosemite situation is a very bad situation. But we’d never elect to do aerial seeding in a national park. We regard most fire effects as natural consequences. . . . We try to allow fire to play its maximum role in shaping the ecology of the parks,” he said.

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK AT A GLANCE

Facts and figures about Yosemite National Park. AREA: 750,000 acres (1,169 square miles) ANNUAL VISITORS: 3.5 million CAMPSITES: 825 in Yosemite Valley; 938 in Tioga and Big Oak Flat Road; 210 at Glacier Point and Wawona; 1,738 lodging units. ACCESS: Three roads--Arch Rock entrance station on California 140; California 41, the park’s south entrance; and California 120, which crosses the park east to west. HISTORY: In 1864, Congress made a special grant of 48.6 square miles of the area to California for a state park to preserve the Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove. In 1890, Yosemite National Park was established. The most popular version of how the park obtained its name is that it comes from the Miwok Indian word for grizzly bear. NATURAL FEATURES: Yosemite Valley, elevation 3,960 feet, is seven miles long and one mile wide, surrounded by granite walls towering 2,500 to 3,500 feet above the valley floor. Included among the promontories are Half Dome (peaking at 8,552 feet), El Capitan (7,564 feet) and Glacier Point (7,214 feet). Yosemite Falls cascade for 2,610 feet, making them the longest falls in North America. The park also contains the famous Mariposa and Tuolumne groves of rare “Big Trees” (Sequoia gigantea) that reach a height of 250 feet and a girth of 30 feet. MAN-MADE FEATURES: 1,300 buildings, 360 miles of paved roads, 94 graded roads, eight miles of paved bikeways, 17 acres of asphalt parking lots, a vehicle maintenance garage, three swimming pools, a tennis court, an ice-skating rink, a jail, a courthouse, two gas stations and two warehouses. PAST FIRES: Fires consumed more than 2,500 acres in September, 1968. MISCELLANEOUS: Fourth consecutive year of drought. The only other time that the park was closed to tourists was in 1965, because of flooding.