Why did the Big Meadow Prescribed Fire escape?
The direct answer to this question is still under review. There probably is not a simple answer, and the indirect answer requires us to go back in time to the creation of the National Park Service. When Yosemite National Park was created, the conventional wisdom was to protect parks from environmental threats, including fire. Today we know this was misguided management, but 100 years of fire suppression changed our forests in many ways. The forests of the Sierra were created and maintained by fire. If you take fire out of the equation, the forests change. When forests finally do burn, they burn differently–typically hotter and larger. We’ve kept fire out of the park for 100 years, and 100 years of forest growth created very densely packed trees and lots of litter and duff on the ground. Then, in 1990, on a dry summer day, there was a lightning strike near the Arch Rock entrance station on the west side of the park. The resulting A-Rock Fire burned a forest overstocked with trees and r
There is not a simple answer to this question, and the indirect answer requires us to go back in time to the creation of the National Park Service. When Yosemite National Park was created, the conventional wisdom was to protect parks from environmental threats, including fire. Today we know this was misguided management, but 100 years of fire suppression changed our forests in many ways. The forests of the Sierra were created and maintained by fire. If you take fire out of the equation, the forests change. When forests finally do burn, they burn differently–typically hotter and larger. We’ve kept fire out of the park for 100 years, and 100 years of forest growth created very densely packed trees and lots of litter and duff on the ground. Then, in 1990, on a dry summer day, there was a lightning strike near the Arch Rock entrance station on the west side of the park. The resulting A-Rock Fire burned a forest overstocked with trees and removed most of the canopy, leaving behind thick br
