Why did the Yellowstone fires of 1988 happen?
As fire swept across Yellowstone through the summer of 1988, its stimulated an outpouring of emotions. Although fire had long shaped the Yellowstone forests and grasslands cherished by generations of visitors, few could accept the dramatic changes they experienced during that summer. The first explorers to Yellowstone found landscapes largely fashioned by fire. These same visitors, however, brought a European bias against the ecological advantages of fire in natural systems. during the next century, a policy of fire suppression prevailed on federally managed lands. By the 1940s plant ecologists began to understand that fire is the primary agent of change in the arid, high-altitude west. fire recycles entire plant communties, quickly returning nutrients to the soil and opening forest canopies to sun-loving plants. Among its other functions are the control of disease and the creation of habitat “mosaics” that support greater biological diversity. In Yellowstone, grass, shrub, and tree sp
