Yellowstone Controlled Burning at Yellowstone Term Paper

...This whole country is dry...If you don't have to burn it, don't burn it" said the fire marshal from the area (Shay & Johnson 2008). Fire damage at Yellowstone such as the damage that occurred in 1988 and 2008 has come at a tremendous cost: "Since 1984, the annual average number of fires that burn 1,000 acres or more has increased from 25 to 80...and the total average number of acres burned by each of these fires has increased from 164,000 to 765,000. Naturally, the costs of controlling such fires also have escalated exponentially -- from $134 million in 1986 to $335 million in 1994 -- which does not include the higher costs of preparedness, not to mention health consequences, environmental impact and property damage" (Paige 1998). Fire is not only damaging to life and property but also to water quality and air quality, which can hurt the wildlife the practice is attempting to preserve. If controlled burning spirals into an uncontrolled fire, it can damage rather than aid the general ecosystem of flora and fauna.

However, the reason for the severity of such recent fires, as occurred in 2008, some allege, is the lack of small, controlled burnings, not an excess of them. "Smaller, more frequent fires consume the dead wood and underbrush that otherwise accumulate to dangerous levels, resulting in more catastrophic fires when they occur" (Paige 1998). In other words, by not allowing small fires to burn, cheaply and safely during the 1980s and 1990s, as was urged by many environmentalists, the current unsafe conditions that often result from controlled burnings were spawned.In "1995 the Forest Service estimated that about one-third, or 39 million acres, of the lands it manages in the interior West were at risk of large, uncontrollable, catastrophic wildfires," because of "over-fueled forest floors" that had not been subject to controlled burns with enough frequency (Paige 1998).

The issues of who should the park serve first and foremost (humans or the ecosystem as a whole), the methods by which controlled burning are conducted at Yellowstone, and the dangers of controlled fires doing damage to humans rage on much like the fires themselves. Furthermore, the debate often feels circular -- a lack of proper management of the environment in the past has filled the forests with unpredictable tinder, and the climate changing of global warming is growing increasingly dangerous for fires of any kind, making notions of controlled burning oxymoronic. Yet while what some call the Park Service mentality of "let it burn" "a disgrace" when it reaches proportions of uncontrolled conflagrations, without some small controlled fires to burn the undergrowth larger forest fires of the future are likely to be even more uncontrollable and dangerous (Albright 2000).

Works Cited

Albright, Del. (May 2008) "Controlled fire." Retrieved June 4, 2008 http://www.delalbright.com/Articles/fire.htm

Cullen, Barry. (24 Sept 2008). "No, don't let Yellowstone burn." The New York Times. Retrieved June 4, 2008 at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE1D81F3EF936A1575AC0A96E948260

Shay, Becky & Clair Johnson. (19 Apr 2008). "Winds take control of controlled burn."

Helenair.com. Retrieved June 4, 2008 http://www.helenair.com/articles/2008/04/19/state/top/50st_080419_bil-fire.txt

Paige, Sean. (23 Nov 1998). "Only the Forest Service can prevent forest fires." Insight on the News. Retrieved June 4, 2008 at….....