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 Now in its second printing, Yellowstone in the Afterglow has proven to be a popular and valuable resource for researchers, managers, interpreters, resource educators, and anyone interested in learning more about the events of 1988 and the research efforts that have taken place during the postfire recovery period.
Mary Ann Franke |
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 By Tami Blackford and Mary Ann Franke IIn summer 1988 a combination of conditions never before seen in Yellowstone National Park led to the burning of nearly 800,000 acres. Many dire predictions were made about the park’s future—wildlife would be reduced, forests would have to be replanted, increased erosion would cause downstream flooding, visitation would decline—none of which turned out to be true. The fires created unparalleled opportunities for scientific research. Most of the previous research on fire impacts in wildland areas had been done in relatively small areas and after the fires were out. After the 1988 fires, the Greater Yellowstone Coordinating Committee (GYCC), representing Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks and six national forests, assembled 15 interagency teams to collect data and make initial assessments on topics ranging from air quality to recreational use. The GYCC selected a panel of scientists to prepare an independent evaluation of “the apparent ecological impacts and implications of the 1988 fires as they related to the area’s watersheds, fisheries, wildlife, forests, soils, ranges, and biological diversity” and to develop a list of postfire research needs. The National Park Service provided more than $6 million to support 32 projects involving scientists from 70 institutions; some of this funding came from a special congressional appropriation for a postfire research program and the remainder was diverted from other programs at Yellowstone and other national parks. More than a decade after the fires, Yellowstone Center for Resources staff compiled the results of the more than 250 research projects initiated in the greater Yellowstone area since 1988. Distributed in 2001, the 118-page report, Yellowstone in the Afterglow: Lessons from the Fires, summarizes the research findings of dozens of academic and government scientists in a broad range of disciplines. The research largely documents the resilience of the Yellowstone ecosystem in response to large fires. Prefire records compiled by government agencies and academic researchers made it possible to answer many questions about how the 1988 fires affected various components of the ecosystem. In 1988, fire-behavior experts and managers had underestimated the influence of the weather—a threshold exists between a very dry year and an extraordinarily dry year—and overestimated the effect that multiage forest stands would have in limiting the spread of fire. But for the most part, the fires did not affect the abundance, distribution, or diversity of the park’s plant and animal communities. A few exceptions stand out. Research suggests that the moose population on Yellowstone’s northern range has declined in part because of the loss of old-growth forests due to the fires, and aspen seedlings are growing in burned areas where they had not previously grown. Thousands of acres of forest have been replaced with millions of lodgepole pine. The fires also increased public understanding and acceptance of the role of fire in wildland areas. This information will assist land managers as they begin to look for signs of ecological change on millions of acres of western forest and grassland hit by the record-breaking fire season of 2000. Once again, drought conditions meant that some fires remained out of control for weeks despite the best efforts of firefighters using the best that modern technology has to offer. While large fires are incompatible with the human communities that now cover much of the United States, research has shown that they are not only consistent with the mission of Yellowstone National Park but are also essential for Yellowstone to continue to be Yellowstone. Copies of Yellowstone in the Afterglow can be obtained through the park website at http://www.nps.gov/yell/publications/pdfs/fire/afterglow.htm or by writing the Yellowstone Center for Resources, Publications, P.O. Box 168, Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190. |
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This material is from Natural Resource Year in Review--2001, published by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, in May 2001 (publication D-2255) /YearInReview/yir/yir2001/03_laboratories/04_5_blackford.html Last Updated: |
