As I write this, the beautiful view of the Wind River
Mountains out of my window is obscured.
It is so smoky we are leaving our windows shut because it smells like a
brush fire a short distance away.
In this case,
that brush fire is 1,000 miles away.
Northern California and parts of Oregon and Washington are burning up.
This smoke is
covering up towns all over Wyoming especially in the Big Horn Basin and Wind
River Basin.
It is hard to
find a city or town from Cheyenne to Evanston or Powell to Gillette in which
smoke has not dominated the view. At least the sunsets and sunrises have been
magnificent!
Here in
Lander, we enjoyed one clear day between all the smoke from the northwest to
local smoke from the Little Bob fire on the Wind River Indian Reservation. They are letting it burn and it is over 1,500
acres and growing.
These ash
clouds also remind of a time 27 years ago when Yellowstone National Park literally
burned up. Here is what I recall of that event:
Is this hell? Or is it Yellowstone? That was my exact
thought as I piloted a small, single engine airplane over the vast expanse of
Yellowstone National Park the last week of August, 1988, during the horrible
fires that year.
Flying with me
on that day was Larry Hastings, one of the best pilots and instructors in
Wyoming history. Also along and helping
take photos was Mike McClure, a legend in his own right, as a premier
photographer.
Both men lived
in Lander. We had been talking about making this flight for some time.
It was my
bright idea. We had seen TV coverage of
the fire but no one seemed to have a good aerial view. I always want to figure out a way to take a
big picture in the easiest way possible and flying over the park seemed the
best plan.
Hastings was
aware of the altitude restrictions, which caused us to be quite high as we flew
over the world’s oldest national park while it was literally burning up.
The view was
both impressive and unimpressive. It was
impressive because as far as the eye could see was smoke. It was unimpressive because it was impossible
to make out landmarks. Not even the
mountains were very visible.
What was
visible were a large number of hotspots where fire would shoot 200 feet in the
air. It was hot down there. The park I loved was going to be changed
forever.
That event two
and half decades ago was unprecedented in the history of the National Park
Service. There were contrasting programs
of fire suppression and “controlled burns” in place, which caused the people
responsible for the park’s existence to be incapable of dealing with the
conflagration.
Cities and
towns in a wide circle around the park enjoyed the most colorful sunsets in
history. Lander, which is a two-hour
drive southeast from YNP, the evening views were unprecedented. It was an awful time for folks with
respiratory problems. No wind and no
rain could relieve these conditions.
Fighting the fires in 1988 cost $120 million which is $230
million in today’s dollars – almost a quarter of a billion dollars. It covered
some 800,000 acres or over one third of the park.
Biggest fire
was the North Fork fire, which was started July 22 by a cigarette dropped by a
man cutting timber in the neighboring Targhee National Forest.
One of the
most amazing scenes of this fire was when embers from it were sent airborne
across the massive Lewis Lake by 80 mph winds setting new fires on the other
side of the lake.
This complex
of fires burned 140,000 acres and was finally extinguished when some welcome
rains fell later that fall.
Stories about
other parts of the park and the valiant effort of more than 13,000
firefighters, 120 helicopters and other aerial devices, plus National Guard and
civilians detail bravery but were to no avail.
Important structures like Old Faithful Inn and the Lake Hotel were saved
but efforts to stop the fires proved to be impossible.
Mother Nature
wanted that fire to burn and it did until she was ready to put it out.
And that memorable
day 27 years ago we were flying above a scene right out of Dante’s Inferno. I
experienced a memory that I would both like to forget and yet, always recall.
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