Yellowstone fires and floods and reframing catastrophes

The photos and videos of the rivers flooding on the north end of Yellowstone National Park last month gave a dramatic testimony to the power of nature.

The northern and northeastern entry points into the park are now closed, probably for years, and the damage has been labeled devastating, catastrophic, unprecedented, extreme - pick your apocalyptic adjective. The flood was caused by a very warm and wet rainstorm on top of the above normal late May snowpack, and this rain on snow event brought the creeks and rivers to flood levels not seen in over 90 years.

Major access roads and bridges were washed away, and it is difficult to imagine rebuilding roads in some of these narrow canyons. The Park Service is not willing to estimate the cost of such a project, and it will be years before access is restored.

Some of the words we use to describe this flooding are reminiscent of the ways we describe wildfires during fire season every year. In 1988, known as the year of the Yellowstone Fires, national evening news reports often started with a glum-faced news anchor describing the day's devastation of one of our national treasures.

During the first week of September 1988, Roger O'Neil of NBC News led the newscast with, "This is what's left of Yellowstone tonight," while Dan Rather of CBS and Tom Brokaw of NBC told the country that "Part of our national heritage is under threat and on fire" and "Our oldest national park is under siege."

The networks eventually changed their storyline to cover the amazing resilience of nature and the regrowth and recovery of Yellowstone as summer turned to winter and black landscapes turned to white and then green. Old Faithful continued to erupt on schedule, and anyone who has visits the park now likely will have a hard time seeing any trace of the 1988 fires.

During my career as a fire manager, ecologist and fire analyst, I tried to use my words carefully when it came to describing wildfire effects and caution others to do the same. Despite what you might read, wildland fires do not consume or destroy acres of land; the land is still there after the fire passes even though the vegetation is often changed dramatically. The word catastrophic evokes strong emotion without adding much to the description of fire effects and should probably only be used in a true tragedy, such as the loss of homes or lives.

In both flood and fire, we should remember that nature is doing what nature does. When humans build access roads in canyon bottoms next to rivers, we should expect them to be washed away occasionally, as rivers naturally flood and change course. When we build homes, lodges and park visitor centers in the forest, we should expect some of these will burn each year. Summers in the west are hot and dry with occasional lightning, so fires are inevitable.

Fire managers, insurance companies, road engineers and savvy land use planners understand this. Bob Barbee, superintendent of Yellowstone National Park in 1988, told the nation that the fires simply were a force of nature and to fight them that summer was about as useful as trying to fight a hurricane or tornado. The best we could hope for was to protect those things we care about, including park buildings and other infrastructure, and wait for the weather to change.

As we enter the (thankfully) delayed fire season in 2022 in the Blues, listen for the words used to describe fire on the landscape. For most fires, the words devastation or catastrophic are so value laden as to be useless. No single acre of land has ever been lost to or consumed by a wildfire, although the landscape may look quite different without the same vegetation. This is what nature does and has always done, and the streams, forests and wildlife tend to recover from fires (and floods) quite well.

Keeping that perspective helps us to see natural events in a much different light.