The politics of wildfire: lessons from Yellowstone

Abstract

Land managers and ecologists generally agree that the 1988 fires in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem were an ecologically important part of a natural disturbance pattern and that little could have been done to stop them. For policymakers however, the fires were a major public relations failure. Land managers and ecologists need to understand how citizens' and politicians' view of wildfire as a crisis can undermine the stability of natural resource agencies, then find ways to build support for natural fire.