Life at the Blowdown

A violent wind shear in 1984 uprooted and toppled thousands of trees here, and seedlings emerged the following spring. Four years later, the Fires of ’88 roared through Yellowstone more fiercely than the wind that had driven them, rapidly engulfing the tinder-dry logs at the blowdown and opening lodgepole pine cones to release millions of seeds. Born in the Fires of ’88, lodgepole pines thrived in ash-enriched soil, well suited to Yellowstone’s harsh climate and volcanic soils, while lodgepole seedlings, strawberries, and grouse whortleberry emerged in 1989. By 1998, ten-year-old saplings had already grown several feet high, showing the forest’s renewal after storm and fire.

Wyoming · United States