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For more information on wildland fires in Yellowstone National Park, visit: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone

Wildland Fires in Yellowstone: Historical View
Wildland fires burned in northwestern Wyoming long before Yellowstone National Park was established in 1872. Like today, many of the wildland fires were caused by lightning.

Image of a man standing in a burning forest.In the first half of the twentieth century, most park managers and visitors considered the fires to be destructive to the Park. For this reason, the National Park Service had a general policy of putting out all fires on national park lands. In the second half of the century, managers of national parks and forests began to understand the importance of periodic wildland fires. In fact, they even tried "controlled burns"--fires they set on purpose and controlled to avoid spreading. In the 1970s, Yellowstone and other parks established fire management plans that allowed nature to take its course. Lightning-caused wildland fires were allowed to burn because of their positive natural influence on wildland ecosystems. Photo: Courtesy of www.arttoday.com

In 1972, the Forest Service and the National Park Service established a "prescribed natural fire" policy. Under this policy, fires in wilderness areas and some other parts of the national park system were monitored. If the fires did not threaten people, property, or natural resources, they were not put out by fire fighters. Instead, the fires were allowed to extinguish naturally as a result of rain or lack of fuel. Between 1972 and 1987, 235 fires occurred in Yellowstone National Park. All of these fires were allowed to extinguish naturally as a result of the prescribed natural fire policy. About 33,000 acres of Yellowstone were burned during those 15 years.

In 1988 , several small wildland fires ignited in Yellowstone National Park. Initially they met the conditions of the prescribed natural fire policy and were allowed to continue burning. The conditions of the fires quickly changed, however, and nearly 800,000 acres of Yellowstone were burned that summer.

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