Fire Safety
Embracing the mountain country in and around Yellowstone National Park is a priveledge. Roughly 3 million visitors in one given year venture to Yellowstone and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem to experience some of the earth's most cherished wildlands and wildlife. Every year the number of visitors increases, and every year more people move into the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, an area nearly the size of west Virginia which encompasses 18 million acres.
Today, more than 210,000 people live in or near Greater Yellowstone. Just as the wildlands of Yellowstone have nourished fish and wildlife populations, so too have they helped to shape the character and livelihood of those who call it home, in the twenty counties and parts of three states that comprise the Ecosystem. Most residents live outside the park and wildlands, but they all are enriched by its wildland resources. Enjoying a quality of life that is the envy of the nation, they take part in outdoor recreation - hunting, fishing and simply watching wildlife in numbers far above the national average.
In 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant signed a law declaring that Yellowstone would forever be "dedicated and set apart as a public park or pleasuring ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people". This wildland has been protected and gifted to ensure our generation and future generations can learn something of the wonders of nature. Yellowstone National Park is a land like none other, and requires regulations and guidelines to assist in protecting the wildlands and its ecosystem.
Fire safety is an important topic that all visitors to Yellowstone National Park and its neighboring wildlands should be familiar with. We, the people, have a responsibility to be educated and make good decisions on what to do and what not to do in wooded areas. The National Park Service has designated campgrounds and picnic areas. Campfires are restricted to designated areas with permanent fire grates. Wood and charcoal fires are permitted at these locations. Backcountry campfires require special permits. Special fire restrictions are occasionally put in place when the danger of wildland fires is great. If you plan to light a fire in the park, please ask about current fire restrictions at the entrance station when you arrive, or contact the Visitor Services Office immediately prior to your visit.
Fire Safety - Use of Fires:
1. Use portable stoves - avoid having wood fires 2. Build fires only in established fire rings at campsites that permit wood fires 3. Use only dead and downed wood for fires 4. Do not remove branches or bark from any dead or living standing tree 5. Make certain the fire is cold before leaving the campsite 6. Where it is legal to build a fire, keep it small 7. Use only small sticks and branches as these burn more completely, provide a bed of clean hot coals for cooking and do not result in partially-burned or smoldering logs
A wildfire is a powerful force of nature, and as natural as rain, wind, snow, or lightning. In fact, lightning is the spark that sets many natural wildfires. Summer tends to be the high season for wildfires, as heat and drought make vegetation dry and more likely to burn. On a hot summer day, when drought conditions peak, something as small as a spark from a train car's wheel striking the track can ignite a raging wildfire. Sometimes, fires occur naturally, ignited by heat from the sun or a lightning strike. However, the majority of wildfires are the result of human carelessness. Practicing caution and fire safety can save our wildlands from mass devastation.
The summer of 1988 is remembered as the season of fire in Yellowstone National Park. Nearly a million acres of forest land burned within park boundaries by a series of uncontrollable wildfires. Headlines suggested Yellowstone had been reduced to ashes. Nationally and internationally, the conflagrations were viewed as a catastrophe. These violent disastrous fires scorched more than 700,000 acres, leaving behind dead wildlife, damaged buildings, injured firefighters, and ghostly forests of stripped, blackened tree trunks. The world's first national park was devastated.
Yellowstone National Park's managers faced the ultimate test of their non-interference philosphy of fire management. The debate over park and public land fire policies still rages, though things have quieted down some. After years of suppressing every fire in the park, Yellowstone in 1988 was operating under a new "let it burn" policy, based on scientific evidence that fires were regular occurrences in nature, part of the natural cycle of a forest.
Today, Yellowstone forests are healthy, green, and growing. Woodlands charred in 1988 are being replaced by robust conifer understories. The 1990s were a period of renewal for Yellowstone, and visitors today are fascinated by post-fire regrowth. With the return of nutrients to the soil, lush grasses and forbs benefit wildlife, new aspen growth offers diversity, while burned snags provide increased nesting habitat for birds. Wildflowers are profuse and regeneration has been prolific. Yellowstone reminds us that fires are an integral component of the ecology of Rocky Mountain forests, and it shows throughout the park.
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