Photos of Yellowstone’s Arnica fire

Wildfire Today has obtained these photos of the Arnica fire northwest of Yellowstone Lake in Yellowstone National Park. All are National Park Service photos.

2:52 p.m., September 25

2:33 p.m. MT, Sept. 26

Structure protection, 2:55 p.m., Sept. 26

To help protect structures the park is using a metal pipe irrigation system and a high-volume pump first used on the 1988 fires. If you look closely at the photo above and squint your eyes a little, you can see a hint of the irrigation pipe leading from a pump on the lake shore.

Here is a photo from InciWeb showing some of the irrigation system in action.

NPS photo from InciWeb

Thanks Tonja and Joe

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12 thoughts on “Photos of Yellowstone’s Arnica fire”

  1. Check out our latest post about the fire HERE. If the weather forecast is accurate, you will receive about 6 inches of snow over the next 30 hours and the fire will be virtually over, at least for the next week or so.

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  2. I work here at lake hotel in yellowstone, and I am just wondering how close they are going to let this fire get before they are going to let us leave? I feel like I am a poor person on the titantic and we are the last to get off the ship and there is limited space on the row boat.

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  3. We drove into YNP Friday morning before the sun was up. Just wish there would have been a little notice at the unmanned east entrance as to where the fire was. Wasn’t a problem but we would have changed our route. We live in Thermopolis so wasn’t a big deal but tourists we met Saturday at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody still didn’t know anything about the road possibly closing despite checking internet sites they knew.

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  4. Tonight (Tuesday night) is the key. As the cold front moves in, the winds will whip up the fire. Once the cold temperatures, snow and moisture arrive on Wednesday, the fire should be history. I’ve been going to the park off and on since 1959, and every year since 1988. I’ve often noticed the "old growth" that did not burn in 1988, and over time all of it will burn. This fire should actually reduce the ability of future fires, occurring in worse conditions, from becoming behemoths like the 1988 fires.

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  5. A friend of mine who is a retired old time reporter and was in Yellowstone in 88, saw the CNN report and simply said the current crop of reporters are often geography challanged.

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  6. Reporters are notorious for getting their mords wixed! Probably she heard "90% of the park", but wrote "90% of the fire". I’ve been amazed at the number of typos & mispellings I see on CNN.com.

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  7. HERE is the link to the CNN article to which Jimjomac referred. He/she is right, and CNN was wrong. Most of the park, about 90%, is in Wyoming, as is Old Faithful.

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  8. I have lived in Yellowstone for 8 years and this fire is close to where we are. The fire we feel should have been put out before it became out of control! The smoke is very thick here 10 miles from the fire and it is a danger to the health of employees! The park, I agree, needs to be cleaned out of the dead andinfected trees and brush, however the fies should be contained. There are a lot of historical buildings here and need to be protected, also there is a lot of istory and awesome things to see.

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  9. CNN’s article by Shelby Lin Erdman was puzzling, the author seems confused about the geography of the park. She says, refering to park spokesperson Linda Miller, "Miller said Monday that 90 percent of the fire was in Wyoming, with the remainder in park areas in Idaho and Montana". But she also says the fire is East of Old Faithful, which is in Wyoming, true? Is she confused, or has the fire spread many miles to the West and North? Or did she mean that 90% of the PARK (not the fire) is in Wyoming?

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  10. I must disagree with the comment about this being destructive. I drove through this area as the fire was taking hold. The best way to truly protect the forest and keep it healthy is to let natural fires burn. Much of Yellowstone is still covered with thick, heavy old growth, deep underbrush, dead limbs, and unhealthy insect-damaged trees. In places it is almost like wandering through Snow White’s haunted forest. If we let the forest cleanse and renew itself naturally with modest fires, as is happening now, we will significantly reduce the risk of future 1988-style firestorms.

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  11. I’ve just returned from Yellowstone and seen the Arnica fire grow to a huge destructive fire in a very short amount of time. I understand the logic behind the ecological benefit to natural fire in a forest, but I am still frustrated and angry, as I was in 1988 at the lack of inflexibility to adapt to unusual conditions — it was close to 80 degrees all week in an extremely dry Yellowstone — this time of year it should have snow — why why why why can’t policy adjust to exceptionally unusual conditions and stop these fires before they become out of control and cause so much destruction in a place that is, in theory, to be protected?

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