The
Yellowstone fires of 1988 together formed the largest
wildfire in the recorded history of
Yellowstone National Park, United States. Starting as many smaller individual fires, the flames spread quickly out of control with increasing winds and
drought and combined into one large
conflagration, which burned for several months. The fires almost destroyed two major visitor destinations and, on September 8, 1988, the entire park was closed to all non-emergency personnel for the first time in its history. Only the arrival of cool and moist weather in the late fall brought the fires to an end. A total of 793,880 acres (3,213 km
2), or roughly 36 percent of the park was affected by the wildfires. Thousands of
firefighters fought the fires, assisted by dozens of
helicopters and
fixed-wing aircraft which were used for water and
fire retardant drops. At the peak of the effort, over 9,000 firefighters were assigned to the park. The Yellowstone fires of 1988 were unprecedented in the history of the National Park Service, and many questioned existing fire management policies.
Media accounts of mismanagement were often sensational and inaccurate, sometimes wrongly reporting that most of the park was being destroyed. While there were temporary declines in air quality during the fires, no adverse long-term health effects have been recorded in the ecosystem. (
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