Fire ravages large part of Yellowstone

Press, 14 September 1988, Page 12

Fire ravages large part of Yellowstone

NZPA-AAP ■ Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming Firefighters took advantage of chilly, damp weather yesterday to strengthen lines around 'fires that. have ravaged nearly 400,000 ha inside Yellowstone National

Park, but hot, dry weather is predicted. "It’s a sleeping giant now,” Denny Bungarz, a fire incident commander, said. “We want to tie it down so when it wakes up it can’t run on us.” Fire activity was limited yesterday after a week-end of showers and

light snow — the first significant precipitation since spring — that gave firefighters a needed break from high wind and temperatures that let fires grow by thousands of hectares a day last week. The fires . inside the 800,000 ha park had burned 380,123 ha.

Humidity levels were up to 50 per cent, but the weather was expected to begin clearing today, and temperatures were to rise, drying the area once again. The cool, wet week-end also helped firefighters in surrounding areas of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming,

and in Colorado and Utah, where a 6354 ha fire was declared under control yesterday. "We’re more optimistic this morning than we have been for some weeks,” said the forest service director at the Interagency Fire Centre in Boise, Idaho.