Yellowstone a year later - includes related articles on Yellowstone National Park

Sunset, May, 1989

Headlines last summer were grim: "Fire storms blacken Yellowstone." "Old Faithful Threatened." "Park Headquarters Evacuated." TV news coverage was even grimmer, with footage of blazing forests, burned-out buildings, and blackened devastation. One politician compared the park to the bottom of a barbecue pit. The nation's first national park was on fire and, according to most reports, burning out of control. Out of control, and beyond hope.

How bad was it, really? Did Yellowstone and its wildlife survive the summer of 1988?

Late last September, after early snows had contained most of the fires, a team of Sunset editors returned to Yellowstone (our fourth trip of the season) and surveyed the entire park-from the air and on the ground. We found that, though nearly a million of the park's 2.2 million acres of forest and meadows were affected, the major attractions were untouched. Geyser basins and waterfalls, lodging facilities and campgrounds-all were spared, and wildlife was abundantly evident.

There's no denying the park's look has changed. Huge forests of once-verdant lodgepole pine are now bleak stands of charred trunks. But even the burnt expanses have their own drama, and there are already many burns you can safely explore on foot.

What will Yellowstone be like this summer and in the years to come? Should you plan a visit now, or wait? We think Yellowstone is going to be more interesting in 1989 than ever. Here and on the following pages, we report on what thefires really did and how to look for nature's recovery. And our vacation planner gives latest details on summer travel.

After the fires: a giant jigsaw puzzle

What we saw from the air last autumn was certainly sobering: hundreds of thousands of acres of blackened and still-burning forest and meadows were ashen sears stretched across the park. However, many maps of the fires' perimeters exaggerated the extent of the blazes. The actual burn pattern was often a mosaic of blacks, greens, and browns. (Good places to see the pattern from the road include the Dunraven Pass area just north of Mount Washburn and canyons along the Madison and Gibbon rivers between West Yellowstone and Norris, especially the hillside behind Gibbon Falls.)

Until new maps are completed next summer, no one will know for certain how much really burned. But surveys available at our deadline showed that eight major fire complexes affected 45 percent (988,925 acres) of the park.

This summer, all park roads will be open; however, check times of temporary closures over Craig Pass for scheduled road construction. Some 19 structures were lost or damaged, but no major park hotels, visitor complexes, picnic areas, or campgrounds were destroyed. Timber burned around most of the Old Faithful-area geysers and in Norris Geyser Basin, but the park's thermal features remain unchanged.

Still, it does look different-especially along roads into the park from the west and south entrances (see map, page 119), the handiest gateways for travelers from most Western states.

The fire's immensity, and its aftermath

For pure shock value, try the most popular entrance, at West Yellowstone. But start early: midsummer traffic delays at this gate can be up to half an hour by late morning, In less than a mile, you enter the perimeter of the North Fork fire, which you leave briefly-only once on the 30-mile drive to Old Faithful. The North Fork was probably the most devastating of the eight major fires. Woodcutters accidentally started it on July 22 in neighboring Targhee National Forest in Idaho. By August 15, it had crossed the road along the Madison River; by September 7, the Old Faithful area had to be evacuated.

Driving through this burn is the best way to imagine the immensity of the inferno: a fire storm of 200-foot-tall flames powerful enough to leap both river and road, voracious enough to burn back through itself several times. The fires were so huge they created their own weather; last August, from Midway Geyser Basin, you could see a column of smoke rising so high that clouds formed at the apex (smoke from the fires rose to 30,000 feet and drifted hundreds of miles).

While all burns look bad at first, the answers to two questions help determine how much damage each fire really did: Did flames burn the trees' green canopies? Was the fire hot enough to sterilize the ground more than an inch below the surface?

Driving up the Madison River from the West Entrance, you'll see evidence of fires that burned with different intensities. Here are the major categories to look for:

Meadow and sage fires. Similar in nature to fires farmers set to clear fields, these were the least extensive burns in the park, sweeping across 54,225 acres of meadow and sage grasslands. Because ash contains plant nutrients that are quickly released into the soil, about the only evidence of meadow fires you'll see this summer is grass that is lusher and greener than grass in unburned areas. Sage benches will also be lusher, though the sage itself will take 20 to 30 years to regenerate completely. Mid-July through August, in burned areas along the river roughly 10 miles from the entrance, you'll see grasses, sedges, cinquefoil, penstemon, and sticky geranium.