Nearly twenty years have passed since the infamous summer of 1988, when Yellowstone National Park and its surrounding forests erupted in an explosive conflagration that forever transformed the landscape of its 1.4 million acre burn area. Politics and the environment joined together to create the circumstances that caused our "national treasure" to burn out of control. A severe drought throughout the spring and summer dried out the understory of the forest until it became the proverbial tinderbox. Decades of fire suppression - the last major fire event in the park dated back to the first half of the 1800’s - contributed masses of dead fall wood and underbrush. Summertime electrical storms and man’s carelessness provided the sparks. Continuous strong winds caused the fire to spread quickly and uncontrollably.

Politically, many forest managers, scientists, and environmentalists believed that a "let burn" policy within the park was the only way to restore the forest from an over-mature stand of lodgepole to a more diverse and healthy patchwork of meadow and both mature and immature forest. Others, especially in the gateway communities, worried that the "product" and business would be damaged by unsightly fire-scarred terrain. Nevertheless, no one imagined that one third of the park would be burned and 120 million dollars would be spent fighting the fires before September 10's snowfall finally halted the fire's spread.

At times, fires moved through the forests at a rate of more than two miles per hour, pushed on by 70 to 80 mile per hour winds. Flames often reached 100 to 200 feet above the tops of the trees, sending spark and hot embers flying through the air to further spread the fire. Over 25,000 firefighters were present in Yellowstone fighting the blaze at it threatened towns like West Yellowstone and historic structures, such as Old Faithful Inn. Hundreds of miles of firelines were dug by both man and machine, and millions of gallons of water and fire retardant were dropped. However, although these efforts no doubt saved many park structures, it was only the snow of early September that was able to stop the wildfire.

A common reaction of people who visited the park for the first few years after the fire was outrage and indignation that the world’s first national park could be mistreated so. The burned areas resembled a moonscape with gray ash and chard remains everywhere, and the dead, burnt trunks of the trees that remained erect stood like silent witnesses. Death and destruction was seemingly everywhere.

But in reality life was already beginning anew. In spite of the large area burned, only a tiny percentage of the large mammal population died (mainly from asphyxiation). True the first winter was rough on the animals, but the renewing forest provided more feeding opportunities that allowed many of the survivors to thrive. Quickly in some places and more slowly in others, a lush growth of grasses and brush came up to erase some of the scarring from the fire. A new generation of lodgepoles - whose seeds were liberated from their shells by the heat of the fire - carpeted the earth in quantities more than enough to eventually restore the forest. And now instead of a vast forest of trees blocking light from the understory, we have a complex ecosystem with a new generation of grasses, flowering plants, and young trees coming up in the endless cycle of life and death that shapes Yellowstone National Park.