Born of Flame and Ash
In the west, summer means wildfires. From the infamous Mann Gulch fire of 1949 to the 1988 Yellowstone firestorm, Montana’s fires have become the stuff of legends. They have burned themselves into the collective memory of the state, so that someone like me—who was not yet born in 1988—can speak of the Yellowstone fires with a familiarity born from years of hearing the tales.
Yellowstone 1988 burn area, in 1989 and 2006. Courtesy: Wikipedia
I wrote this post a few months ago, when smoke from local fires turned the sun red and the world smelled like it was being barbequed. The fire season in Montana has come to a close, and now, before winter sets in in earnest, seems like a good time to breathe the crisp fall air and think about summer wildfires.
Fires have speckled Montana’s past from the earliest days of American settlement, and no doubt before. It as not, however, until the turn of the twentieth century that Montana had the capability to do more than look on the conflagrations with impotent awe and fear. Feeling challenged by nature’s might, and aided by the inexhaustible civilian army of FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps, the authorities opted for a policy of containment and suppression. The Forest Service developed the 10 am policy, meaning that fires should be contained by 10 am the morning after they were reported. By the sixties things started to change. Foresters and environmentalists began to recognize the importance of wildfires on wilderness ecology. Slowly, policy began to transform from one of suppression to one of protecting humans and property, but allowing forests to burn.
In his work, historian Stephen Pyne points out that ancient man used to view fire as both a destructive and a creative force. That view has, in recent years, once again gained acceptance. The lodgepole pine, one of the most common trees in the Northern Rockies, needs fire. The heat from fire opens the tree’s cones, allowing the spread of seeds. Fire reduces the tangle of undergrowth, and destroys deadfall and debris, giving plants room to thrive. As any farmer who has ever burned a field or ditch can attest, plants seem to love the natural cycle of fire. Grass returns quickly to the area, pushing green and lush through the ash, thriving on the nutrients released by the blaze. As you travel through Southwest Montana and Yellowstone National Park, you can easily see fire’s mark. Gray-black tree skeletons loom tall, a constant reminder of fire’s destructive power, but a riot of green flourishes closer to the ground, trees and bushes, tender green, born of the flame and ash.
An iconic photo of the Old Faithful Complex, 1988. Courtesy: Wikipedia
Although often painfully destructive and tragic, fire is an essential factor in experiencing Southwest Montana. Many authors have tried to make sense of this phenomenon, so emblematic of the west. Stephen Pyne has written a wealth of books on the history of fire around the world, especially in the American West. Norman Maclean grounded his meditation on fire in time and space, recounting the tragedy of the Mann Gulch fire is his novel Young Men & Fire. Montana on Fire! By Michael Moore provides an overview of the summer of 2000, one of the largest fire seasons in Montana history. Finally, the Missoula Independent recently published a feature called, “Nature’s Great Act,” a gripping account of the Yellowstone fires of 1988.
What are your experiences with fire in Southwest Montana?
Tags: fires, books, Yellowstone, intro science, intro history
