Posted by Ranger Sally (165.83.4.119) on September 12, 2002 at 16:09:18:
In Reply to: FIRE posted by SHADE AND NEVDADA on September 12, 2002 at 15:11:10:
: WHAT is the most common kind of fire in yellowstone!!!
Thanks for your question, Shade and Nevada.
It's hard to say absolutely which kind of fire occurs the most, because so much depends on the type of fuel, weather conditions in a particular year, topography, etc. I can tell you what happened in 1988, however. 15% of the fires in Yellowstone National Park were crown fires consuming 323,291 acres. Thirteen percent were mixed fires covering a mixture of burn types in areas where most of the ground surface was burned, 2% was meadows, sagebrush and grassland fires, and 4% were surface burns under unburned canopy. Fortunately, naturally caused fires are far more common in Yellowstone than those caused by human carelessness-in fact, to date during the 2002 fire season, there has not been a single human-started fire here.