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Initial Publication Date: June 22, 2010

Week 8: Monitoring Fires

On This Page

Using My World to Manage Forest Fires. Key Questions
Download Geographic Data About the Yellowstone Fires
Launch My World and Open the YNP.axl Project File
Where in the World is Yellowstone National Park?
The Yellowstone National Park Region
Finding Facilities in Yellowstone National Park

Locate Towns and Campgrounds
Search for a Feature You Might Want to Visit
Buffer Old Faithful's Visitor Center for Facilities within 15 Miles
Find Just the Campgrounds within Your Spatial Query

The Historic 1988 Fires in Yellowstone National Park

Get a Sense of How the Fires Progressed
Create and Execute a Query to Find Out the Number of Acres Burned by Major Fires

Discover Which Yellowstone Facilities were Threatened by the Fires

Select the North Fork Fire?
Buffer to Select Facilities that were within Two Miles of the Fire
Find Out how Many Facilities were Threatened by the Fire
Repeat this process on the Clover-Mist and Hellroaring Fires

Consider Fire Management Decisions in National Parks

Fire: Just Part of Nature?
Investigate the Relationship Between Fire Starts and Roads

Explore More if You Have Time
Resources

Using My World to Manage Forest Fires

Fire storm Mirror Plateau

Mirror Plateau in flames, Summer 1988.
Source: NPS Photo archives.

Key Investigation Questions:

Where were the Yellowstone Fires of 1988?
How was GIS used to assist in the management of these fires ?
What is the primary cause of forest fire in Yellowstone National Park?

Download Geographic Data About Yellowstone Fires

Right-click (Win) or control-click (Mac) the link below to download the zipped file.

YellowstoneFireDataMW (Zip Archive 39.9MB Jun15 10)
Unzip the file. A folder called YellowstoneFireDataMW will be created.
Move the YellowstoneFireDataMW folder to inside the Data folder of My World
(Path: Applications/My World/data/YellowstoneFireDataMW.)

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Launch My World and Open the YNP.m3vz Project File

Launch My World by double-clicking its icon on your desktop or by clicking its icon in the Dock (Mac) or Launch Bar (Win).
Choose File > Open Project..., navigate to Applications/My World /data/ YellowstoneFireData, select the file YNP.m3vz, and click Open.
When the project opens, the base map displays Latitude and Longitude lines, outlines of Countries of the world and the U.S. States. The map highlights states in the northwestern region of the U.S.

1 YNP park Opens

Where in the World is Yellowstone National Park?

Zoom in to the NW States layer.

Make NW States the active layer by clicking on its name in the Layer List.
Click the Zoom to Active Layer button to zoom into the northwestern region of the United States.

Can you identify the 11 states in this layer? Set the Get Information

tool to label the names of the states as you click on them.

Return to the map. Hover over the any of the states with your cursor and the state will be labeled. Colorado is identified in this example.

4 NW states active get info

Locate Yellowstone in the Region

Turn on the National Forest, Yellowstone National Park, Teton Natl Park, and Natl Wildlife Refuge layers.

5 NW states added other layers

Yellowstone Park and Federal Lands

Use the Zoom In tool to take a closer look at Yellowstone National Park and the surrounding federal lands, such as the National Forest and National Wildlife Refuge. Observe the amount of National Forest surrounding Yellowstone National Park.

Notice the amount of federal land surrounding Yellowstone National Park. This open land is an important resource for human use and wildlife habitat. The National Forests of the Western United States serve many purposes. Not only do they contain extremely valuable lumber resources, they serve as important carbon sinks and provide habitat and safe refuge for many species of animals. Parks also serve as major corridors for animal migration. Over 75% of the Western United States is federal land of some type.

Zoom in even closer on the Yellowstone National Park layer. Turn the layer on and off and use the Get Information Tool to click on the boundary edges to find out which states the park occupies.

Focus on Finding Facilities in Yellowstone National Park

Planning a trip to see Yellowstone and its magnificent features? You would probably want to know more about the facilities in and around the park, such as where might you find a hotel outside of Yellowstone National Park or where to find a campground that is closest to the attractions that you have traveled to see. Use GIS techniques to find the towns close to the northern, western, and eastern boundaries of Yellowstone National Park.

Locate towns and campgrounds

Turn on the Yellowstone Towns layer and make it the active layer. Choose the Get Information tool and click on each town to learn their names.

Turn on the Yellowstone Towns layer and make it the active layer. Use the Zoom Out tool to view all of the National Forest layer.
Choose the Get Information tool and click on each town to learn their names. Cooke City is identified in this example.

Prefer a campground in the park? Then turn on the Yellowstone Facilities layer and find several campgrounds. Open the Attribute table, sort the Features in ascending order, and search for campgrounds.

To select all the campgrounds, hold the shift key and click on all the campgrounds in the Table of Layer "Yellowstone Facilities".

Click Make Selection from Rows. Name the selection "campgrounds" and click OK.

12 make selection from rows

Notice that the campgrounds are now colored yellow on the map.

13 campgrounds yellow

How many campgrounds did you select?

Show me the answer

Close the Table of Layer "Yellowstone Facilities".

Search for a feature you might want to visit

Create a query to locate the Old Faithful Visitor Center.

With the Yellowstone Facilities layer the active layer, click the Analyze tab. In the Analyze window that opens, choose Select... By Value . Select Records from Yellowstone Facilities Whose NAME is Old Faithful Visitor Center. Type in "Old Faithful Visitor Center" as the Result Name.
Click OK. You will see the results of your query highlighted in yellow on the map.

Buffer the Old Faithful Visitor Center to find facilities that are located within a 20 mile radius of it

In Analyze mode select the Make Buffer Around... option to set a 20 mile buffer around Old Faithful Visitor Center. Accept the default Result Name and click OK.

In Analyze mode select the Make Buffer Around... option. Set a 20 mile buffer around Old Faithful Visitor Center. Accept the default Result Name and click OK.

Click OK. The map shows a 20 mile buffer around the Old Faithful Visitor Center. Edit the Appearance of the layer to 80% transparent with yellow fill.

16 edit appearance

Find campgrounds that resulted from the spatial query

To see if any campgrounds are within a 20 mile radius of Old Faithful Visitor Center, open the Table of Layer of the Yellowstone Facilities and scroll over to the NAME field. Then sort the selected data to the top of the table.

Click on the Yellowstone Facilities label in the Layer List and select Table of Selection.
In the Table of Selection that opens, scroll across to the NAME field. The selected records are highlighted in yellow.

Look in the FEATURE field to see if any campgrounds were selected.

What campgrounds is within 20 miles of Old Faithful Visitor Center

Show me the answer

When you are done, click the Delete Selection

button to delete the selection of facilities near Old Faithful. Also turn off the buffer layer of Old Faithful.

The Historic 1988 Fires in Yellowstone National Park

The fires of 1988 were a result of a "perfect storm" of conditions. The summers of 1982-1987 were exceptionally wet, both suppressing fire and creating a build up of fuels. The summer of 1988 had been exceptionally warm and dry across the west. Normally, during summer months in this region the lands are in lush bloom, but this year the grass and other fuels were tinder dry. The forests of Yellowstone had not seen a fire of this magnitude in as many as 200 years, resulting in trees that were tightly clustered and ripe for the spread of a fire. Hot dry conditions combined with many dry lighting storms triggered the fires of '88. Wind accelerated it. By September 1988, fifty fires had engulfed the park.

Get a sense of how the fires progressed

Turn on the Historic Yellowstone Fires layer by checking the box to the right of its name.
To investigate the dates of the fire, Open the Table of Layer for the Historic Yellowstone Fires layer and sort the DATE field in ascending and descending order. NOTE: The date format is yearâmonth-day. Search for the name of the first and last fire of 1988. The unburned areas have the date "1988".

Click on the Historic Yellowstone Fires label in the Layer List and select Table of Layer.
Scroll across the Attribute table to find the DATE field in the last column.
Click on the DATE field and to Sort Ascending to find the first fire of 1988. Then switch to Sort Descending to find the last fire of 1988.

Show me the results

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Create and execute a Query to find out the number of acres burned by the major fires

First, set up a query to locate the North Fork Fire. Then use the Statistics button in the mapwindow to investigate the extent of the North Fork Fire. Repeat this process for the other large fires including Clover-Mist, Mink, Storm Creek, and Hellroaring.

Show me this process for the North Fork Fire

Click the Analyzebutton and choose Select ... By Value Select records from Historic Yellowstone Fires whose FIRENAME matches North Fork. Click OK

26 827 selected

To find out how many acres were burned by the North Fork Fire, click the Statistics button in the Map window.
In the Statistics Window look at the "Sum" field. The Statistics Results shows the Total number of acres at 531,225.4493.

Close the Statistics window.

What were the total numbers of acres burned for these fires?

Show me the answer

Estimate what percentage of Yellowstone National Park burned in 1988.

Discover Which Yellowstone Facilities were Threatened by the Fires

Select the North Fork fire

Make the Historic Yellowstone Fires layer active by clicking on its name in the Layer List.
Click the Analyze tab and set up a query to select the North Fork fire. Once this fire is selected it will be highlighted yellow.

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Buffer the fire to select facilities that were within two miles of the fire

Click the Analyze tab to open the Analyze window.
In the Analyze window, choose the Make Buffer Around... option. Set the Buffer Distance to 2 Miles Set the Buffer to Outside, with interior. Click the "Dissolve All Buffers" radio button. Accept the Default result name and click OK.
A buffer will be drawn on the map. Edit the appearance of the buffer to a Magenta color that is 50% transparent.

Find out how many facilities were threatened by the fire

Repeat this process on the Clover-Mist and Hellroaring Fires

Record 3 threatened facilities from each of the following fires: North Fork, Clover-Mist, and Hellroaring.

Show me a list and pictures

Wind fans fires

On a windy day, a forest fire like those in Yellowstone National Park can rapidly engulf new areas as far as 10 miles from the previous fire boundaries. Fire managers constantly use weather reports, terrain maps, and other information, such as images from airplanes to make decisions about where to put their fire fighting efforts. At the same time they also must decide which areas to evacuate and which roads to close. Since the Yellowstone fires 20 years ago, the tools of technology, like GIS and satellites, have greatly aided the decision making process.

Envision that you are the fire manager. How would you make decisions as to what to save, what to evacuate, and what roads to open or close? Put yourself in the "hot seat".
Experiment with different sized buffers around the each of the Historic Yellowstone Fire polygons to get a sense of a fire manager's decision-making strategies during a fire of this magnitude.
Use the Data Library pull down menu and select the Yellowstone Data Library. Add other data sets from the data folder to the map that could be of interest to a fire manager, such as cabins, camps, trails, and roads.
Consider the following:
- What data would be important during a crisis such as a fire?
- How would you move equipment and firefighters?
- What areas would require evacuation?
When you are finished exploring, click the Delete Selection button.

Consider Fire Management Decisions in National Parks

Fire management in the National Parks allows for the natural progression of fires. As far back as 1972, fire management in Yellowstone National Park encouraged as many as possible of the lightening-caused fires to progress naturally while protecting human life, properties, and historic structures. In contrast, all human-caused fires are to be suppressed. Prescribed burning is to be utilized to prevent the spread of fires.

From the time the fire management plan in Yellowstone National Park went into effect in 1972, until the fires of '88 erupted, 34,175 acres had burned in Yellowstone due to natural causes. The summer of 1988 broke all the rules of fire, and forever changed fire management strategies. Now, while protecting human life is first priority, fires are allowed to play their ecological role in the park.

Consider the following thought questions:

What were the contributing factors that lead to the enormous fires of 1988?
How do today's park managers decide which fires to fight and which fires to let burn naturally?

Fire: just part of nature?

Switch to the Yellowstone Data Library and add the Yellowstone Fire Starts layer. Investigate its Attribute table. Then edit the properties of the layer to make it more visible. Last, turn on the Yellowstone Roads layer.
Show me

Hide
1. Click the Data Library pull down menu, select Yellowstone Fire Starts. Click OK.
2. Here is the Yellowstone Fire Starts. layer on the map.
3. Double click on the Yellowstone Fire Starts label in the Layer List and select Table of Layer. Scroll across the table to see what fields it contains.
4. Double click on the Yellowstone Fire Starts. label in the Layer List to open the Edit Appearance window. Choose the following options:
  - Draw features using: Y_CAUSE
  - Color Scheme: Random
  - Shape: Square
  - Size: 30%
  - Edit the colors to make each one distinct.
  - Choose purple hues for all man made fires (matches, campfires etc).
  - Choose blue for smokers.
  - Choose red hues for all natural causes (i.e. lightning).
  - Click Apply and click Close
5. Turn on the Yellowstone Roads layer by clicking the checkbox to the left of its name in the Layer List.
6. Turn off the Historic Yellowstone Fires layer.
What is the most common cause of fires in Yellowstone National Park?

Show me the answer

Investigate the relationship between fire starts and roads.

Generally, how far are the human caused fires away from the highways in Yellowstone National Park?

Use the Measure tool to measure the distance from the road to the smoker caused fires. Describe the relationship between human caused fires and roadways.

Show me one way to do this

Create and execute a query to find all the fires started by smokers.
Zoom into a selected point. Measure from the road to the point.

Madison Canyon Burn

Mosaic pattern of burn in Madison Canyon. Source: NPS

Explore More if your have Time

The Fires in the Northwest US 2001-2008

Turn of all layers except the NW States and U.S. States layers on the project map.
Add the TriStateFires 01-08.shp layer. This layer has been selected to show only this 3 state region. It was selected from a larger, National map showing all significant fires in the years 2001-2008.
View the regions of the Northwest States of Idaho, MT, Colorado, and Wyoming where wildfires have occurred in the past seven years.

Set the Appearance of the TriStateFires 01-08.shp to the following:
- Draw features using: First_Year
- Colorscheme: Yellow-Red
- Fill Color Count: 7
- Classify By: Equal Interval
- Make the Outline Color Transparent
- Click Apply and Close.
Show me

Hide
1. Click the Data Library pull down menu, navigate to the YellowstoneFireData folder, and select TriStateFires 01-08.shp layer.
  [thumbnail XXXX 550]
2. Set the Appearance of the TriStateFires 01-08.shp to the following:
  - Set the Appearance of the TriStateFires 01-08.shp to the following:
    
    Draw features using: First_Year
    
    Colorscheme: Yellow-Red
    
    Fill Color Count: 7
    
    Classify By: Equal Interval
    
    Make the Outline Color Transparent
    
    Click Apply and Close.
  - This is the completed map of TriStates Fires, 2001-2008.

Consider the following questions:
- What regions seem to be most prone to fires?
- Which State had the most fires in 2007?
- View the drought conditions map from July 2007 that is to the right. (Click on the map to view a larger version.) Do you see a correlation between drought conditions and fire frequency?

Resources

Read more about this NASA partnership at NASA Satellites Eye Forest Fires

Read more about NASA's role in the management of the 1988 fires, summarized from Yellowstone Science web pages and The Fires of '88 by Ross W. Simpson.

View an animation of the fire progression from NASA.
To learn more read the articles about the Arnica fire from September 24th and October 12th, 2009 listed below:
NASA Earth Observatory Story: Arnica Fire
NASA Earth Observatory Story: Arnica Fire Oct

Wildland Fire in Yellowstone on the web.

View pictures of the major facilities at Yellowstone National Park during the fire. Included are the features: Grant Village Campground, Madison Junction, Old Faithful Lodge and the East and North Entrances.Pictures of 1988 fires in PDF (Acrobat (PDF) 5.1MB Apr2 10)

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