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What saddens me about this picture is all the dead trees that are reminders of The Yellowstone Fire of 1988. I was born 55 miles north of the park and our family used to make several trips in all seasons each year. I remember when the forest in this part of the park was so thick and green with trees 80-100+ feet tall. In 20 years, there has been some natural re-growth but never in my lifetime nor my future children's lifetime will the park be back to what I remember from my youth.
I've included some interesting facts from a Google search:
* The summer of 1988 was the driest in the Park's recorded history.
* More than 793,000 acres (36% of the park) were affected by fire.
* Fires begun outside of the park burned more than half the total acreage.
* Humans caused 9 fires; lightning caused 42 fires.
* About 300 large mammals, primary elk, perished.
* $120 million was spent and 25,000 people participated in this firefighting effort, the largest in U.S. history.
* This huge effort saved human life and property, but had little impact on the fires themselves.
* Rain and snow finally stopped the advance of the fires in September.
Yellowstone National Park, August 2006
