Fire At El Capitan

By MICHAEL D. LEMONICK

Flames danced from treetop to treetop, and a thick pall of acrid smoke descended on the valley. The majestic stands of giant sequoias were difficult to make out, and the monolithic granite landmarks -- El Capitan, Sentinel Rock and Half Dome -- were all but invisible. Perhaps the most beautiful and certainly among the most popular of national parks, California's Yosemite was shrouded in gloom last week as three major wildfires, triggered by lightning strikes the week before, swept through the pristine forest. Residents of nearby towns fled their homes, and for the first time in its 100-year history, Yosemite was closed. Some 10,000 visitors trapped overnight in the park's central valley were finally led out at 4:30 the next morning along roads flanked by blazing trees. The scene brought back frightening memories of 1988, when nearly half of Yellowstone National Park was engulfed in flame.

This time, though, man was able to beat back the fiery force of nature. Ten days after the conflagrations started, a corps of more than 15,000 fire fighters finally had them largely contained, and officials began to let visitors back into sections of the park. But the damage done was severe: some 24,000 acres of forest were gone. The town of Foresta, which lies within the park, lost 66 of its 86 buildings, and ranches on Yosemite's edges were charred.

The park's wildfires were only one patch in a mosaic of destruction all across the Far West. In California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana, 195,000 acres were still aflame at the end of the week, and in the vast wilderness of Alaska another 2 million acres were burning. Now in its fourth consecutive year of drought, the western edge of the nation is one big tinderbox, and a single spark is enough to kindle an inferno. So far this year, 10 fire fighters have died, 740 homes and other buildings have been destroyed, thousands more have been threatened, and property damage has run into the millions of dollars. In all, more than 3.6 million acres of forest have been turned to stumps and ashes. Even if this fire season ended today, it would be twice as bad as last year's, and the second worst since 1983.

As homeowners confront the blackened remains of their belongings and Americans wonder if the parks will survive long enough to be seen by their children, an old question arises anew: Is enough being done to prevent fires and to stop them once they start? The issue flared two years ago in the wake of the Yellowstone fires. That disaster was blamed on the National Park Service's decade-old policy of letting some fires burn unhindered.

The idea behind "let-it-burn" is reasonable enough. Fire has always been especially prevalent in the West, and over thousands of years the forests have adapted. Some trees, like giant sequoias, have evolved a thick, flame- resistant bark. The sequoias and others actually depend on fire to make their cones pop open, spreading seeds for the next generation of growth. Periodic blazes clear underbrush and let in sunlight to nourish the seedlings.

If the underbrush is left to accumulate too long, a small fire can turn into a catastrophe. "We used to have a Smokey Bear philosophy that all fire is bad," says Park Service spokesman Dwayne Collier. "Now we accept that it has a natural and useful role." Environmentalists agree. "There's really no controversy here," says Steve Whitney, director of the national parks program at the Wilderness Society.

Accordingly, the Park Service reversed its long-standing policy in the late 1970s. Natural blazes that did not threaten people or property were allowed to take their course, and park officials would sometimes start fires intentionally. But the term let-it-burn is a misnomer, says Elmer Hurd, head of the service's fire-management branch. "We don't ignore fires," he says. "We continually monitor them." In Yellowstone, rangers finally stepped in when the flames got out of hand, but it was too late. By the time autumn rains finally quenched the fires, some 1 million acres had gone up in smoke. It was a public relations fiasco, and the Park Service moved quickly to review its procedures. In the end, though, while some details were changed, the overall policy remained the same. The reason the Yosemite fires were attacked quickly and effectively is that they started in areas near towns and thus had to be put out immediately. Says Hurd: "There was no question about what we would do."

The Yosemite episode seems to vindicate the Park Service's strategy -- and at the same time makes it clear that the old suppress-all-fires system caused more problems than it solved. Last week's blazes spread quickly not only because of drought but also because decades' worth of excess brush had accumulated during the years before controlled burning began.

The manpower and equipment for fighting the Yosemite wildfires came largely from the Boise Interagency Fire Center, in Idaho, which dispatches fire fighters across the country and coordinates their efforts. More than 23,000 have been mobilized this summer, including 2,000 U.S. Army troops. "Right now we've nearly reached our ceiling," says information officer Reed Jarvis. "If we had any greater demands, we would be sorely stressed." More troops could be called up within days, but that might not be fast enough in case of a major blaze.

Thanks to higher humidity, cooler temperatures and diminishing winds, the flames have begun to die down in every state except Alaska. But while weather will always be the dominant factor in starting and sustaining fires, the amount of damage they cause depends on the choices individuals make. Fire fighters are becoming increasingly concerned about places like Santa Barbara, Calif., where residential areas are encroaching on wilderness. Fires are as much a part of the Western environment as hurricanes are on the barrier islands of the East and Gulf coasts. And people who choose to live in such places are automatically putting their lives and possessions at risk.

With reporting by Andrea Dorfman/New York and Dennis Wyss/San Francisco