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Secondary effects of wildfires
Essay of Yellowstone national park over the last hundred years
Essay of Yellowstone national park over the last hundred years
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For everyone involved in the Yellowstone fires, there is a particular day that stands out above the rest. For Carol Shively, interpretive ranger, it was July 31st; the day the fire hit West Thumb. “We headed into the geyser basin to clear visitors, but some were reluctant to leave—they were captivated by the mushroom- like clouds of smoke rising to the north, the helicopters dipping low to fill their water buckets in the lake, and the planes dropping red retardant drops that streaked across the sky. And then it came. Tongues of fire whipped through the air and seemed to roll over the horizon toward us. With terrific force, the wall of flames approached the road, hesitated slightly, and then rushed up on the other side, even greater than before. The fire was crowning in the trees surrounding the geyser basin. I stood frozen in place, mesmerized by the sheer power before me.” (The Yellowstone Fires of 1988)
Yellowstone became a national park on March 1st 1872. It is the first and oldest national park in the world. A small portion of the park can be found in Montana and Idaho, but most of the park is in Wyoming. Yellowstone is commonly known for features such as the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, and the Old Faithful Geyser. Millions of people come from all over the globe to visit the beautiful sights of Yellowstone every year, but the summer of 1988 brought a shock to people everywhere. The summer of 1988 was the worst forest fires of Yellowstone in the parks history. It consumed vegetation faster than experienced firefighters ever thought possible.
Yellowstone’s landscapes have longed been shaped by fires. “The natural history of fire in the park includes large-scale conflagrations sweeping across the pa...
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...morning, and it rained off and on the rest of the week. All the fires were out by the end of October.
Works Cited
1. Ruhf, Dr. Robert J. "The 1988 Forest Fires of Yellowstone National Park by Dr. Robert J. Ruhf." Editorial. Yellowstone National Park Forest Fires of 1988. Web. 24 Mar. 2012. .
2. Sample, Michael S. Yellowstone on My Mind. Helena, MT: Falcon, 1998. Print.
3. ""Wild land Fire in Yellowstone." Nps.gov. The National Park Service. Web. 26 Mar. 2012. .
4. The Yellowstone Fires of 1988." (2003). Www.nps.gov. 2003. Web. 26 Mar. 2012. .
5. "Yellowstone National Parks Year Of Fire." The Great Fires of 1988. 1 Jan. 2000. Web. 26 Mar. 2012. .
It is so sad to see the horror of forest fires and how they corrupt our beautiful land. So much damage comes out of what started so small. At least 603 square miles of land were burned in the early stages of the Arizona fire only a couple of years ago (BBC 2). In a Colorado fire 2.3 million acres had been burned (BBC 3). That land could have been saved if the use of prescribed burns had been in the area.
The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America is about Teddy Roosevelt’s attempt to save the beautiful scenery of the West. Roosevelt used his presidency as a springboard to campaign for his want of protection for our woodlands, while doing this he created the Forest Service from this battle. In this book, Timothy Egan explores the Northern Rockies to analyze the worst wildfire in United States history. This disaster is known as the “Big Burn,” the 1910 fire that quickly engulfed three million acres of land in Idaho, Montana and Washington, completely burned frontier towns and left a smoke cloud so thick that it hovered over multiple cities even after the flames had been extinguished. Egan begins this story about the Big Burn of 1910 with the story of how the United States Forest Service came into existence.
In this research paper, I will address the changes that occurred within the ecosystem of Yellowstone National Park since the reintroduction of the grey wolves. The paper will consist of four sections; the first section will include the history behind the extirpation and subsequent reintroduction of the gray wolf in Northern America. The second section will explore the political controversy that surrounds the reintroduction of the gray wolf in Yellowstone. The third section will contain discuss the gray wolf and its impact on the ecosystem of Yellowstone. I will conclude my essay by explaining how the gray wolves act as climate change buffers in Yellowstone amidst global warming.
Robbins, Jim. Last Refuge: The Environmental Showdown in Yellowstone and the American West. New York: Morrow, 1993. Print.
The United States Department of agriculture Forest Service investigation report on the thirty mile fire.
Policies regarding the handling of wildland fires continue to change and evolve as new information is learned each fire season. Attitudes have changed between complete wildland fire suppression to no suppression at all. We now seem to have reached a balance between the two schools of thought and fall somewhere in the middle.
Approximately three miles west of Colorado Springs in the Pike National Forest, the Waldo Canyon fire of 2012 was the most destructive wildfire in Colorado history burning 18, 247 acres, killing two people, destroying 347 homes and damaging many more (City of Colorado Springs, 2013). In addition to property damages and loss of life, there were other damages caused from this wildfire to include wildlife, plant life, watershed and soil. Economic damages caused by this wildfire include firefighting costs, insurance claims, home displacement costs and business closures during the duration of the fire.
Burrows , Neil. “A Desert Landscape Scarred by Fire : Image of the Day.” NASA, NASA, 26 Jan. 2006, www.earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=88807. Accessed 4 April 2018.
King, N. (2009, June 20). Wolves in Yellowstone: A Short History | wolves | issues. Yellowstone Insider: Your Complete Guide to America's First National Park. Retrieved July 20, 2010, from http://www.yellowstoneinsider.com/issues/wolves/wolves-in-yellowstone-a-short-history.php
Yellowstone is bigger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined. There are 50 mammal species, 311 bird species, and five endangered species. Rivers and lakes make up only 5% of Yellowstone (By 1870, Gold Fever Was Gone and the Great Yellowstone Expeditions Began. "Yellowstone National Park History."). The largest lake is called the Yellowstone Lake and is 136 miles long. The lake is known for having the highest altitude in North America ("56 Interesting Facts About . . . Var Addthis_config = ). In addition to lakes and rivers, there are about 290 waterfalls in the park. The highest waterfall is called Lower Falls and is 308 ft tall. Forests make up 80% of the park and an additional 15% is made up of grassland ("10 Surprising Facts About Yellowstone." National Geographic.). Yellowstone has one of the largest petrified forests from the big 1978 fire. The burned trees reformed into wood and minerals due to heat from the fire. The park sits on the Continental Divide, this means that half of the lakes run to the Pacific and the other half run into the Atlantic Ocean (United States. National Park Service. "Park Facts.). The average temperature during the summer is 70-80 degrees Fahrenheit and in the winter the average temperature is 0-20 degrees Fahrenheit. The average elevation is about 8,000 feet above sea level covered by mountains and lakes ( "Yellowstone National Park - Fast Facts."). The highest peak in the park is called Eagle Peak and is 11,358 feet high. The lowest peak in the park is Reese Creek which is 5,282 feet high. ( United States. National Park Service. "Park
During the nineteenth century, one of the first conservation movements was developed here in America, which is in part how the idea of National Parks first came to be (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS***). In 1872, Yellowstone was the first natural area to be designated a National Park by President Ulysses S. Grant. According to Deveraux Butcher, "National Parks are spacious land . . . areas essentially in their primeval condition and so outstandingly superior in beauty to average examples of their several types as to demand preservation intact and in their entirety for the enjoyment, education and inspiration of all the people for all time" (1969, p.365). With this idea in mind, Americans began to find their way to Yellowstone, and other National Parks as they developed; especially after the creation of the automobile and other improved forms of transportation including train, airplane, and bus (LIBRARY OF
Long before fire was used by humans, forest fire was initially play an importantly role in maintaining the ecology of the world. The factors of forest fires can be divided into two types, which are natural forest fires and human-induced forest fires. Usually human-induced fires are detected earlier than natural forest fires, which might have burn for hours long before the arrival of firefighters. Thus, natural forest fires cause a greater harm to forest in term of area burnt than human-induced forest fires although the later one has actually contribute to a higher percentage of the total cases of forest fires.
Fire at any level can be devastating, yet the effects that wildfires have on every worldwide country really has left its mark on the land. As written by world renowned wild fire spokesperson Smokey the Bear, “Every year, wildfires sweeps through parts of the United States setting wilderness and homes ablaze. On average these raging infernos destroy about four to five million acres of land a year. But in 2012, wildfire burned more than 9.3 million acres, an area about the size of Massachusetts and Connecticut combined” (U.S. Wildfires). Destroying homes, crops, towns and of course forests. Yet the effects of these fires can be seen from a negative perspective as well as some positive. Plus there are natural causes as well as manmade that makes these destructive fires erupt and become almost unstoppable in seconds.
An example of a significant bushfires caused by human and natural activities would be black Saturday. On February 2009 a major bushfire swept it way through Victoria causing the death of 173 people and injuries to a further 414 individuals. It holds the title of the bushfire with the most amounts of lives lost in Australia. As many as 400 single fires were recorded on the day. The main causes of ignition of black Saturday where fallen power lines, arson and lightning. As stated in the first paragraph; Fire cannot be controlled by man.
This fire burned 1.2 million acres of land. My sources were: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/02/booming/lessons-from-the-yellowstone-fires-of-1988.html?_r=1& http://www.nps.gov/yell/naturescience/wildlandfire.htm http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/special-reports/yellowstone_fires/article_e253b09a-2dc1-5107-811f-1ebf5d6c150c.html http://forestry.about.com/b/2013/06/24/forest-fire-basics-and-the-behavior-of-forest-fires.htm http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/fire/figh_nf.html http://www.nps.gov/yell/index.htm