NASA Sees 30 Years of Yellowstone Recovery from 1988 Fires

A combination of lightning, drought and human activity caused fires to scorch more than one-third of Yellowstone National Park in the summer of 1988. Within a year, burn scars cast a sharp outline on the 793,880 acres affected by fire, distinguishing wide sections of recovering forest, meadows, grasslands and wetlands from unburned areas of the park. After more than two decades, satellite instruments can still detect these scars from space. In this time-lapse video, a series of false-color images collected by USGS-NASA Landsat satellites from 1987 to 2018 show the burning and gradual regeneration of Yellowstone's forests following the 1988 fire season. Landsat Project Scientist Jeff Masek talks about how Landsat satellites detect the burn scars from space and distingu ish them from healthy, un-burned forest and from new growth. Watch as burn scars (dark red) quickly replace large expanses of healthy green vegetation (dark green) by 1989. Notice how the scars slowly fade over time as new vegetation begins to grow and heal the landscape.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Matthew Radcliff

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[sandal_thong]

A previous video I saw today said forests aren't supposed to be grown "to their full potential" but rather there should be patchy spots here and there that change over time as fires come and go, leaving meadows. They showed surveying photographs from 100 years ago taken from ridges, as a normal baseline to contrast to close-growing trees in a modern forest.

[bwxmoto]

Was out there in 2007, still lots of scars and devastated areas.

[tomunc]

Nature knows what it is doing. fires from lightning help thin the tall trees out, replenishing the soil, allowing underbrush to receive light and nutrients and providing food and shelter for smaller species.

[IonianGarden]

I am surprised in other countries how long it takes for forest to recover from a fire. In Australia, most forests recover in less than a year.

[belllarosa]

The mother of all volcanoes at Yellowstone just bubbling to burst ..a super-volcano to trigger a dinosaur-like extinction 😱

[laturista]

how many years will it take California to recover? 100 years or more just a guess, we as a human species are screwed.

[mybackhurts]

We've created more damage trying to stop the fires