Fire in Wilderness Stories

The National Park Service (NPS) used $193,750 of Burned Area Rehabilitation (BAR) funds through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) to temporarily cage and collect whitebark pinecones in Yosemite and Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks.

Most documentation of the panoramic lookout photos project, which began about 1930 to document areas seen from the lookout system, comes from the US Forest Service. The NPS project began in 1934. Lester Moe worked for the Forest Service taking photos in 1933 and 1934, and later worked for NPS. Several innovations came about from this project: the Osborne photo-recording transit and “special emulsion infra-red sensitive film” not affected by smoke and haze.

The tables on this page list parks and points within parks where a panoramic lookout photo was taken in the 1930s. Data are included for lookout station, azimuth sector, photo serial number, type of film, date of original photograph, photographer, and retake date, where available.

Retake photography allows a viewer to compare how identifying landscape features change over time. There are many uses for these panoramic lookout photographs still today: assisting lookouts and park managers to accurately locate forest fires; identifying vegetation patterns; identifying landscape features; repeat photography to observe changes; and comparing infrared and panchromatic films, which can reveal changes in vegetation health and soil moisture, among other things.

Celebrating International Day of Women and Girls in Science in February, the NPS Wilderness Stewardship Division recognizes Carol Miller, Research Ecologist at the interagency Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute. Miller's work focuses on wilderness fire.

In February and March 2019, crews from Buffalo National River and surrounding area conducted a prescribed fire in the Lower Buffalo Wilderness area. The park treated approximately 12,000 acres of forest, glades and woodlands with a low intensity broadcast burn to restore fire-dependent glade habitats, promote the growth of fire dependent species, and help reduce hazardous fuels.

National Park Service Visitor and Resource Protection staff are linked by the commonality of protecting people and parks. We work in aviation management, fire management, law enforcement, public health, safety, wilderness stewardship, and more. Work with us!

Everglades fire staff are walking in the footsteps of Bill Robertson, the park’s first fire control aid starting in the late 1950s, trying to relocate his research plots, which are part of a larger project to see how the condition of the pine rocklands has changed. Revisiting Robertson’s plots will allow additional research information to be gathered and compiled with existing data, helping fire managers to maintain and restore resilient landscapes.

Although the Windy Peak fire was in a remote wilderness location, Sequoia and Kings Canyon NPs staff chose to contain it due to drought conditions and the need for firefighting resources throughout the state and nation. However, the response was similar in several ways to managing the fire for forest health.

Buffalo National River staff conducted a prescribed fire in Lower Buffalo Wilderness in southeast Marion County. The prescribed burn was conducted to reduce hazardous fuel loads that could lead to catastrophic wildfires, promote restoration of post oak savannas and cedar glades, lower the risk potential for forest diseases, improve wildlife habitat, and help control invasive vegetation. The burn helped meet the NPS goal of maintaining and restoring resilient landscapes.