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Introduction
The Yellowstone fires of 1988 occupy a distinctive place in the history of the United States, largely as a result of the force and extent of public scrutiny and media attention that the fires received, as well as for the great costs of their attempted suppression (Agee et al. 678). The Yellowstone fires of 1988 is actually a bit of a misnomer, according to Schullery (686). The fires themselves actually took place in the Greater Yellowstone Area, which represents 4.8 million hectares of mostly public land in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho (Schullery 686). The Greater Yellowstone Area is a vast tract of wilderness and national parks, including the Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Teton National Parks, as well as two national wildlife refuges, six national forests, and [acres of] state and privately owned land (Schullery 686).
In addition, the fires that raged across the Yellowstone National Park and the Greater Yellowstone Area in the summer of 1988 remain significant as a result of the timely test they provided for the management philosophies, policies, and programs of parks and wilderness areas (Agee et al. 678). Several factors demonstrated by the Yellowstone fires of 1988 provide important insight into environmental law policy as well as disaster law policy. The government of the United States initiated its fire protection policies on public wild lands in the late 19th century, when the United States Cavalry took over the management of the Yellowstone National Park in 1886.
As the countrys first national park, the Yellowstone National Park served as a litmus test for a number of governance issues, although certainly at the time of its creation, the issue of the environment, environment protection, pollution and commons resource management was not as prevalent as it is in the current century. In 1963, according to Agee et al., the Leopold Committee came together to analyze a number of issues in the park as well as the Greater Yellowstone Area, including wildlife management issues (678). At that time, the Leopold Committee advised that the policy of total fire suppression be reformed under specific guidelines (Agee et al. 678; United States Geological Survey 3).
The National Park Service adopted the recommendations in 1968. The agency modified its fire policies&so that naturally ignited [and] lightning fires, burning within prescribed guidelines, could be incorporated into the overall agenda of national park management (Agee et al. 678). These so-called natural-fire management plans were applied in the Greater Yellowstone Area after 1972 (Agee et al. 678) The foundation of these natural fire management policies, according to Agee et al., was based on past experience and historical data indicating that fuel conditions confined large fires to old growth pine or aging spruce fir forests (678).
The enormity of the Greater Yellowstone Area and the immensity of the Yellowstone wilderness ecosystem was assumed to be adequate to contain natural fires, an assumption which proved costly not only on an economic scale but also on an environmental one.
Though wildfires have long been synonymous with fear, death and destruction, in reality wildfires have cleansing and renewing effects for the forests that they sweep through periodically. Many of the vast tracts of wilderness such as those found in the Yellowstone National Park as well as in the Greater Yellowstone Area have been formed by fire; in fact, wildfires are as equally beneficial to forests as the cool, creeping ground fires often described as good for grass production ( National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 1).
In a complex and primordial ecosystem such as that that exists in the Yellowstone National Park and the Greater Yellowstone Area, ecologists understand that wildfires specifically those sparked by lightning strikes are natural acts that support the rejuvenation of trees and vegetation (House Senate Committee Action 2964). According to the National Park Service, the natural history of fire in the park includes large scale conflagrations sweeping across the parks vast volcanic plateaus, and hot, wind-driven fires torching up the trunks to the crowns of the pine and fir trees at several hundred-year intervals (par. 1).
Up until the 16th century and the arrival of the Europeans to the North American landscape, wildfires were a normal part of the natural world and helped define the ecosystems that exist today, particularly in places such as the Yellowstone National Park and the Greater Yellowstone Area, which house millions upon millions of trees. The vast majority of the plant species indigenous to the Yellowstone National Park and the Greater Yellowstone Area are fire adapted ( National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 3). For example, the lodge pole pine, or pinus contorta, comprises almost 80 percent of the Yellowstone National Parks forests ( National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 3).
Lodge pole pines contain cones that are serotinous; these cones are preserved within the core of the tree by resin until the powerful heat of the wildfire bursts the bonds and liberates the seeds within them ( National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 3). Wildfires also kindle the rejuvenation of willow trees, sagebrush, and aspens; however, the relationships between these species of plants and wildfires is convoluted by other factors, such as grazing stages and weather ( National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 3).
In fact, when a wildfire strikes, though above ground parts of grasses and forbs are consumed by flames, the below ground root systems typically remain unharmed, and for a few years after fire these plants commonly increase in productivity ( National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 3). Once the Europeans landed however, in essence wildfires took on their current dangerous and destructive connotation, largely because they destroyed property. However, in truth wildfires play important roles in fertilizing soil, stimulating seed germinating, and supporting wildlife (Verchick 39).
The following paper will critically examine and comment on the topic of environmental and disaster law as it relates to the Yellowstone Fires of 1988. The paper will show an awareness of relevant primary and secondary authorities and provide an in-depth analysis of the federal laws that govern the multiple stakeholder agencies that manage the Yellowstone National Park. The analysis that this paper provides reveals several of the major problems that continue to best environmental layers, disaster lawyers and policy makers in the area of resource management of large commons such as the Yellowstone National Park.
These include competing interests, diminished natural infrastructure, special interest politics, corruption, mutually exclusive goals, lack of cohesion between state and federal governing bodies, lobbying, and value shifts. These problems came to light extensively throughout the Yellowstone fires of 1988, and to a large extent, none of them have been solved to this day. While the goals of environmental and disaster law may be to preserve and protect the natural resources and natural infrastructure of the United States, as this paper will demonstrate, the law is very often hamstrung by misalignment of priorities, misallocation of funding, infighting and corruption.
In addition, lack of effective communication and transparency between stakeholder agencies, including legal entities such as the Environmental Protection Agency, often leads to the dissipation and scattering of information and ensuing weakening of legal frameworks. As Robert Verchick, author of Facing Catastrophe: Environmental Action for a Post-Katrina World explains:
Much of the data we have is scattered throughout academic disciplines and throughout many countries; and there are not enough people who are tying all of this learning together. The biologist counting polyps on the Great Barrier Reef doesnt talk with the fire suppression expert in Yellowstone National Park; and neither of them&chats much with environmental lawyers or policy makers (27).
Environmental law exists to minimize the failures of environmental governance, protect natural resources, and ensure that the natural resources of an individual nation are used appropriately, justly and wisely (Verchick 61). In disaster law, this is especially true. The Yellowstone fires of 1988 revealed a sizeable hole in the disaster law infrastructure and response mechanism, not to mention the governance and application of environmental law as a whole.
Since the Yellowstone fires of 1988, this hole has increased in size, as evidenced most recently by the abject failure of the disaster law response to Hurricane Katrina in 2006. While the mission of disaster law in the United States may still pay lip service to governance and maintenance of the natural infrastructure and resources of the United States, in reality, disaster law and environmental law has not recovered its footing since the Yellowstone fires of 1988. As Verchick notes, decades ago, America was the undisputed leader in environmental protection (61). Americas environmental laws and ideas were studied and copied around the world (Verchick 61).
Not surprisingly, since the United States is blessed with some of the most breathtaking and awe inspiring natural resources on the planet. However, since the Yellowstone fires of 1988, this vaunted position has slipped significantly. Today, as Verchick laments, the United States is coasting in the sag wagon, with much to learn from the European Union, Japan and others about environmental policy and protection (61). It would appear that if the United States fails to reinvigorate [its] laws and enforcement methods, [it is] doomed to lose the irreplaceable infrastructures that keep many of [its] communities and commercial activities alive (Verchick 61).
Background
Fire Suppression Policies
Certainly, the point of this paper is not to suggest that all naturally occurring fires are advantageous. In contrast, the number of wildfires in the United States have continues to grow in their power and devastating impact. When the Yellowstone fires of 1988 happened, it was the federal governments long standing policy of fire suppression that came under scrutiny and chastisement form both the media and from the park stakeholders involved in the management of federal lands.
Over the course of the 20th century, both the management of the Yellowstone National Park and the public that uses the park persisted in seeing a wildfire as a destructive force, one to be mastered, or at least tempered to a tamer, more controlled entity (McGinnis 38). Before the arrival of the European population, the early stewards of the park chose to battle all blazes in the belief that fire suppression was good stewardship (McGinnis 38). This value system began to change around the time of the Second World War (McGinnis 38; National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 7). As McGinnis explains:
By the 1940s, ecologists recognized that fire was a primary agent of change in many ecosystems, including the arid mountainous western United States. In the 1950s and 1960s, national parks and forests began to experiment with controlled burns, and by the 1970s Yellowstone and other parks had instituted a natural fire management plan to allow the process of lightning caused fire to continue influencing wild land succession (39).
In the early years of the Yellowstone National Parks fire policy from 1972 through 1987, 235 fires were allowed to burn 33,759 acres National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 7). Of these fires, only 15 spread across more than 100 acres; in addition, each of these fires was doused naturally by rainfall ( National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 7). More rain fell during the summers between 1982 and 1987 than average; this fact may have contributed to the relatively low fire activity in those years (McGinnis 38; National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 7).
However, the fires that raged in the Yellowstone National Park in 1988 sparked an equally fiery discussion regarding the proper role of naturally occurring forest fires on land managed by the federal government. Prior to the fires of 1988, the federal government give preferentiality to the policy of fire suppression in Yellowstone ( National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 1). Fire suppression refers to the practice of dousing wild fires the moment they are caught; this practice not only prevented the development of habitat&but also allowed the accumulation of dense undergrowth, increasing the risk of larger, more explosive fires ( National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 1). The policy of fire suppression was built on the system of values prevalent at that time in history which favored short term solutions to fires that occurred naturally within the park. As Clark explains, the Yellowstone fires of 1988 revealed the faultiness of this logic:
Repeatedly, management decisions made on the basis of short term needs, single species, or other narrow foci have been frustrated or have produced unexpected consequences because of unforeseen linkages across space and time, often caused or affected by humans (61).
The fire suppression policies of the 1980s were a clear indication of this phenomenon. The fire suppression practice was designed to temper the short term harm caused by naturally occurring fires in the park. However, the long term build up of fuels&caused the major fires of 1988 that were beyond the capacity of the interagency effort to contain them (Clark 61). In the current century, the policies that govern the Yellowstone National Park policy are intended to defend the naturally occurring wildfires within the park within realistic limits under the current practice of controlled burns (Clark 61; Verchick 39). However, as Verchick notes, fire suppression remains a widespread practice on federal land, particularly where marketable timber is at stake (39).
Fire suppression may seem a natural and logical response to a forest fire. Indeed, in any other context than the Yellowstone wilderness, the best practice concerning a fire is to suppress it by any means necessary. However, in a complex ecosystem such as the Yellowstone National Park, one that actually benefits from wildfires, the values shifted after the wildfires of 1988 to policies that embraced the natural approach to wildfires and controlled burns (McGinnis 38; National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 1; Wuerthner 91)
The results of human efforts to improve the behavior of a complex ecosystem in a critical state are unpredictable and can actual make the performance worse (Schumann 30). Since the late 19th century, the Forest Service was committed to putting out whatever fire they came across immediately. As Schumann explains, the logic behind that policy was that it was better to catch a fire small before it became big (30).
In 1998 the Yellowstone fire consumed almost 800,000 acres, 36 per cent of the park, and the number and intensity of forest fires was increasing everywhere. Also in 1998, the geologists Bruce Malamud, Gleb Morein, and Donald Turcotte of Cornell University gathered extensive data on forest fires. They demonstrated that the number of acres consumed in a forest fire followed an inverse power law of 2.48. A forest is a complex system in a critical state, at least for forest fires. The actions of the forest service were inadvertently making the critical state more dangerous by not allowing the small naturally occurring fires to keep the system in its natural state (Schumann 30).
Some legal and ecological scholars have indicated that fire suppression may not have caused as much of the spread of the fire as the media reported (Despain and Romme 695). Despain and Romme surveyed the Yellowstone National Parks records to show that lightning ignitions have occurred every summer, [and that] even without suppression, most of these ignitions fail to spread (695). Rather, the wildfires are extinguished either in a fuels complex that cannot support fire spread or during a period of wet weather (Despain and Romme 695). Historically speaking, the indigenous vegetation of the Yellowstone National Park and the Greater Yellowstone Area burned in regular cycles of two to five years at a minimal intensity (McGinnis 38; National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 6).
In this natural cycle of wildfire, the adult trees were not affected by the fire; the wildfire affected the top layer of the vegetation only. As a result, the grass fires kept a fine balance so that neither trees nor grasses dominated. Until, that is, the arrival of cattle and sheep in the 1800s (McGinnis 38; National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 6). The grazing of cattle in the region removed a large portion of the naturally occurring grasses (McGinnis 38; National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 6). Ironically, the value system in place at that time supported the loss of the grasses as a preventative measure against wildfires.
As the grasses in the region disappeared, the net effect was a transformation in the ecology of the region. Once there were less natural grasses to prevent erosion, the rain created gullies, some of which were over 40 feet in depth this effectively flushed away large portions of the vital topsoil (Despain and Romme 695; McGinnis 38; National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 6; Wuerthner 91). At the same time, the population of the indigenous trees developed rapidly (Despain and Romme 695; McGinnis 38; National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 6; Wuerthner 91). For example, according to McGinnis, the ponderosa pine population jumped from an average of 23 trees to 851 trees per acre (39).
The policy of fire suppression has caused controversy among ecologists for a number of years. In regions where the park used suppressed fires, the result is the same as placing more fuel on the flames (Despain and Romme 695; McGinnis 38; National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 6; Wuerthner 91). When a wildfire does get sparked it becomes more powerful, and more likely to destroy the bigger adult trees by setting fire to them (Despain and Romme 695; McGinnis 38; National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 6; Wuerthner 91).
Fire suppression has also made shade tolerant trees including incense cedar and white fir to occupy the territory of the ponderosa pine, once the predominant species of the region (Despain and Romme 695; McGinnis 38; National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 6; Wuerthner 91). If fire is permanently suppressed therefore, these trees will effectively take over the region forever (Despain and Romme 695; McGinnis 38; National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 6; Wuerthner 91). Nature, however, takes care of species invasion in its own way, since whenever a fire that cannot be suppressed comes along as in the case of the fires of 1988 the system resets itself (Despain and Romme 695; McGinnis 38; National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 6; Wuerthner 91).
In controlled burns, on the other hand, the policy trusts that the fire will take care if itself. Firefighters will watch the fires, which can be any size from 100 to 3,000 acres; however, emergency services are rarely if ever needed (Despain and Romme 695; McGinnis 38; National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 6; Wuerthner 91). Typically, a controlled fire will almost always exhaust itself. As McGinnis explains:
To pare the buildup of fuel, fire managers need to do a lot of prescribed burns. But they cant. As in many areas of the West, complaints about man-made fire&roll in thicker than smoke. People see fire as a harmful and destructive force and are repulsed when flames turn forest to ash. Objections to the smoke from nearby homeowners&stringent air-quality regulations, and a lack of funds all hamstring forest managers efforts (40).
Policies aside, most forests are designed to regenerate (Despain and Romme 695; McGinnis 38; National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 6; Wuerthner 91). And even if the forest does go up in smoke, the hardy saplings can usually withstand the fire to a much higher degree than their adult counterparts can (Despain and Romme 695; McGinnis 38; National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 6; Wuerthner 91). Without wildfires, however, other species of trees such as maple and birch will eventually take root and overwhelm the area (Despain and Romme 695; McGinnis 38; National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 6; Wuerthner 91).
This is exacerbated by the fact that large trees like oaks tend to create canopies that block the sunlight; this in turn starves the saplings of crucial light and makes it nearly impossible for the saplings to grow (Despain and Romme 695; McGinnis 38; National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 6; Wuerthner 91). However, not every forest works well using frequent controlled burns. Yellowstone National Park, for example, is entirely different and marches to a different ecological drum than Yosemite and the oak forests of the East. In Yellowstone, it all burns to the ground, or it doesnt burn at all (McGinnis 39)
Over one third of the Yellowstone forests burned to the ground in 1988; however, biologist Despain doesnt blame the disaster on all those years of fire suppression (695). As Despain explains, some say fire suppression has substituted fewer high-intensity fires for more frequent low-intensity fires. But thats not the case in this part of the Rocky Mountains (695). In the Yellowstone National Park, the lodge pole pine forests do not have the same undergrowth as the copious grasses located in other states (Despain and Romme 695; McGinnis 38; National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 6; Wuerthner 91). In addition, the wilderness does not burn effectively until the trees reach an advanced age anywhere from 250 to 300 years old (Despain and Romme 695; McGinnis 38; National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 6; Wuerthner 91).
When the lodge pole pine forests are young, low-lying vegetation stays sparse, moist, and green, offering little fuel during the fire season. The crowns of the lodge pole pines also are well separated. Both conditions hinder the spread of fire (Despain and Romme 695; McGinnis 38; National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 6; Wuerthner 91). What the biologists and scientists now understand as a result of the research done after the fires of 1988 is that Yellowstone was meant to burn infrequently, and it does (Despain and Romme 695; McGinnis 38; National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 6; Wuerthner 91).
What the analysis of the policy in this case, the suppression of any and all fires that erupted in the park prior to the disaster scale of 1988 has revealed therefore is that the efforts of the policy makers and agency stakeholders will affect the balance of the ecosystem up until a fire arrives that cannot be controlled or suppressed. The forests themselves contain failsafe mechanism to keep themselves renewable. Small new trees remain green and moist through the fire season and are not very flammable. Over the next few hundred years, the young forest will go through a series of changes that will again transform it into a forest ready to regenerate through fire (Despain and Romme 695; McGinnis 38; National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 6; Wuerthner 91).
Despite this fact, biologists and scientists caution that bringing fire back will probably never restore the landscapes of the West to their original states (Despain and Romme 695; McGinnis 38; National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 6; Wuerthner 91). A number of areas may quickly return to their natural fire models. However, in other regions, it may take hundreds or thousands of years to recover from the ecological impact of fire suppression (Despain and Romme 695; McGinnis 38; National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 6; Wuerthner 91). Other regions may experience a state of perpetual limbo because of the encroachment of human populations.
These regions will be too heavily populated for a natural fire to burn without limits; therefore, in these regions, the conflict between people and fire will continue. Civilization and the fire suppression that follows it will continue to alter forests and grasslands. But lightning will always strike and strong winds will blow (Despain and Romme 695; McGinnis 38; National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 6; Wuerthner 91). Wildfires therefore are much like flood plains or fault lines between tectonic plates. As McGinnis explains, sooner or later, something will happen. Its just a matter of when (38).
Description of the Fires of 1988
The fires that ignited in the Yellowstone National Park in the summer of 1988 burned through nearly half of the United States first and most popular national park (Schab 382). The weather conditions in 1988 converged to create what would become a completely unforeseen drought. Despite the fact that in April and May of 1988, the Greater Yellowstone Area saw a much greater than average rainfall in the region, by the time June, the Yellowstone National Park and its surrounding area was undergoing an intense and prolonged drought ( National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 5).
The existing park policy of fire suppression ensured that that forest fuels grew progressively drier ( National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 5). In addition, the park was besieged by a number of summer thunderstorms in the early part of the summer that generated lightning strikes but no rain ( National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 5).
The first fire began on June 14 in the Stone Creek area ( National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 3). This fire was followed by the Shoshone Fire, the Fan Fire, and the Red Fire on June 23, 25 and 30th respectively. This was not altogether uncommon, according to the National Park Service, since multiple fires typically start and then burn themselves during the so-called fire season (par. 3). For example, in June 1988, 11 of the 20 early season fires went out by themselves, and the rest were being monitored in accordance with the existing fire management plan ( National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 3).
What the fire suppression policy did not account for however was the fact that the summer of 1988 was the driest on record. By July 21, the park managers began to suppress all the fires; however, the fires and their attendant clouds of smoke had become noticeable to park visitors and to the national media ( National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 3). Shortly thereafter, the fires ravaged across nearly 100,000 acres. The most challenging day was August 20, 1988, when tremendous winds pushed fire across more than 150,000 acres. Throughout August and early September, some park roads and facilities were closed to the public, and residents of nearby towns outside the park feared for their property and their lives ( National Park Service: Wildland Fire in Yellowstone par. 3).
During this period, the existing fire suppression policy came under intense scrutiny by the media as the fire generated national and international attention. In Congress, policy makers found themselves in heated discussions with special interest groups, business interests, home owners, wildlife specialists and environmentalists. The commons was under threat, and its various stakeholders converged on the federal government to demand changes in the law. The media added fuel to the flames by spinning the angle of the story as a massive flaw in the fire suppression policy governing the wildfires, paying special attention to the fact that the fires were and had been a natural aspect of the parks ecosystem for centuries.
A fire of this magnitude was inevitable. When Yellowstone became the countrys first national park in 1872, fires, either natural or man-made, were put out as soon as possible. This prevented the park from cleaning itself out. With the cycle of regeneration suppressed, new plant life was stifled, and Yellowstone became clotted with aging, lodge pole pine ( Acres Afire 24)
Then in 1972 a new natural regulation policy was put into effect. The idea behind it was that Yellowstone is a living, breathing ecosystem, and that fire is a necessity. The park service adopted a stance that all naturally occurring fires would be controlled so as not to damage campgrounds, visitor facilities and property outside the park, but not extinguished.
This worked for a time. For the last nine years, an average of 3,600 acres of the park burned each year. Then came the Big Dry . For the first time in 118 years, there has been no significant rainfall in Yellowstone. The fires started in June and have been gaining ground ever since. Other than dryness, the fire fighters major enemy is wind. Gusts up to 60 mph have sent flames on a rampage through tinder-dry woods.
The raging has not been confined to the fire. There is a blazing argument between local citizens and conservationists over whether the park service has handled the fires correctly. Understandably, residents and ranchers who live close to the park are nervous and do not share the services enthusiasm for the let it burn policy. Officials of the Church Universal and Triumphant, a religious group owning 15,000 acres adjacent to the park, have threatened to sue if the fire damages their property. Meanwhile church members have been chanting to keep the fire line from their property.
Others do not question the need for fire, but wonder why the service insists on letting nature be in command. They suggest controlled burns when the weather is agreeable and manpower available. Yet most conservationists agree with the park services policy. Ecologists and biologists are eager to observe Yellowstone after the fire, as there will be a greater number and diversity of plants and animals. In fact, only half of the vegetation in the burnt areas will die as a result of these fires. Contrary to what Hollywood portrays (animals fleeing for their lives before a wall of roaring flames and so on), Yellowstones animals are taking the fires in stride. They simply move aside and look for somewhere else to feed or bed down ( Acres Afire 24).
At first the fires did not have much effect on the parks tourists. The number of visitors dipped by only 7% in July. But as the smokey weeks rolled by, numbers dropped off sharply. During the second half of August, park officials estimate that Yellowstone will have had 50% fewer visitors compared with last year. While fire fighters have managed to keep the flames away from major attractions such as Old Faithful (the geyser), six camp grounds remain closed and smoke has reduced visibility. Park officials are encouraging people to come, and have dropped the $10 entry fee. Wyoming officials insist that the fire is causing little or no inconvenience to travellers and have bought radio advertising in Salt Lake City, Omaha and Des Moines to tell their story.
The fires themselves were eventually doused by the arrival of the fall. According to the National Park Service, by September 11, 1988, the first snows of autumn had dampened the fires as the nations lar
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