The Grant Visitor Center is located on the shore of the West Thumb of Yellowstone Lake one mile off of the main park road at Grant Village Junction. The visitor center and development are named for President Ulysses S. Grant, eighteenth president of the United States, who signed the bill creating Yellowstone National Park in 1872. The facility was constructed during the 1970s and, along with the entire Grant development, was and is a controversial Yellowstone development due to its location in prime grizzly bear habitat (the area is the location of several major cutthroat trout spawning streams).
The visitor center hosts an exhibit that interprets fire's role in the environment, using the fires of 1988 as the example. The movie Ten Years after Fire is shown on a regular schedule throughout the summer months.
--from NPS Yellowstone website, Grant Village page
While we didn't take the time to watch the movie (though I don't remember seeing information about it playing) we did spend plenty of time looking around the exhibits. Between the giftshop and the exhibits is a beautiful looking bench.
The exhibits explain the life cycle of the lodgepole pine. The trees produce two types of cones--one of which germinates normally, but one requires fire to open. Whenever a fire sweeps through the area and old trees are destroyed the fire also provides a way for new trees to grow, in fact it is required for these trees to have a chance of growing!
The fires of 1988 were caused/exacerbated by several factors including drought and lightning (as well as human factors).
There were thousands of firefighters (more than 25,000 actually!) in the park that summer battling many different blazes. In fact Old Faithful Inn was even nearly destroyed.
I jokingly observed that lodgepole pine are telephone pole trees. When the lower branches don't receive sunlight they fall off and die--leaving large sections of trunk without branches.
There was also quite a bit of information about aspens and their lifecycle.
Northern Yellowstone is a landscape of broad valleys, open vistas, and sagebrush-covered plains with pockets of aspen and Douglas fir.
Historically, fires burned in this area every 25-30 years. However, no large fires had burned here for the last 100 years. Aspens mature in 80 to 100 years, then the groves decline and the trees begin to disappear from the scene. Fire is necessary to establish a new generation of aspens in the park.
Thousands of sprouts appear in an aspen grove the year after a fire. The young tender sprouts provide nutritious food for many animals. Elk and other browsing animals favor the numerous sprouts over larger trees.
--from NPS signage Aspen, the Short Term View
Aspen groves at 50-75 years are approaching maturity. The trees allow abundant sunshine to reach the ground and the rich soil supports many wildflowers and shrubs.
Douglas firs eventually grow in the shade of the groves. With the passing of years without new fires, the fir will hide the aspen. Aspen seldom disappear but no longer dominate the scene.
When only aspen are present, the area is wetter and less likely to burn. As fir and pine trees begin growing in an aspen grove, they use more moisture, drying the soil and making the chances of fire greater.
--from NPS signage Long Term View of Aspen
Though some said that the fires of 1988 would be the end of Yellowstone it has indeed grown back better than ever in the intervening years. It is amazing at the resiliency that God built into such systems.
~Matt
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