Yellowstone fires of 1988

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The largest wildfire in the recorded history of Yellowstone National Park in the United States took place in 1988. Starting as many smaller individual fires, the flames quickly spread out of control due to drought conditions and increasing winds, combining into several large conflagrations which burned for several months. The fires almost destroyed two major visitor destinations and, on September 8, 1988, the entire park was closed to all non-emergency personnel for the first time in its history. Only the arrival of cool and moist weather in the late autumn brought the fires to an end. A total of 793,880 acres (321,272 ha), or 36 percent of the national park, burned at varying levels of severity. At the peak of the firefighting effort, more than 9,000 firefighters were assigned to the fires in the park, assisted by dozens of helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft which were used for water and fire retardant drops. With fires raging throughout the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and other areas...

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