Response to Wildfire Stories

In the eight years since the Strawberry Creek fire, much has changed in the area, with restoration efforts to bring back native vegetation, stream condition, and fish habitat.

At 12:30 pm on Sunday, June 30, 2024, the Riley Fire was reported on Denali National Park and Preserve lands about one mile north of the park entrance, in the Nenana River canyon. Due to the extremely dry conditions, the fire grew quickly. Thanks to assistance from both local and out of state partners, fire protection agencies, and planning in advance for this type of scenario, the park was back to regular operations only 11 days after ignition.

During the 2024 fire season, wildfires impacted several National Park Service (NPS) units throughout the Pacific West Region. These wildfires threatened sensitive natural and cultural resources in each park, but a new generation of NPS wildland fire Resource Advisors (READs) was trained and ready to help protect the special values for which these parks were designated.

Following two large-scale wildfires in 2020 and 2021, funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and Burned Area Restoration (BAR) has supported giant sequoia replanting and restoration in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.

In 2023, interns collected and processed hundreds of thousands of native plant seeds at Lava Beds National Monument. In 2024, 4000 propagated native plants were planted at three sites to restore the land after the Caldwell and Antelope fires.

The Rainbow Fire started on July 24, 2023, from a lightning strike on the Rainbow Plateau, on the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park. The North Rim has a long history of prescribed fires and wildfires helping to create a healthy ecosystem. “The Rainbow Fire is a great example of a fire occurring in an area that is both adapted to and regularly exposed to fire,” said Grand Canyon National Park Fire Management Officer, Ed Waldron.

In April 2023, ten wildland firefighters from parks in the National Park Service's National Capital Region spent two days helping state and local partners suppress a wildland fire near Clear Spring, Maryland.

Using $2.6 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) Burned Area Rehabilitation (BAR) funds, the National Park Service (NPS) has begun habitat restoration in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks (SEKI) in areas outside of designated wilderness, and is in the planning stages for restoration within designated wilderness. This work is taking place in areas that burned during the 2020 SQF Complex and the 2021 KNP Complex.

Yosemite National Park managed the lightning-ignited Red and Rodgers fires in summer 2022. Park management chose to use a strategy to confine and contain the fires using natural barriers such as rocks, trails, and creeks, to minimize the risk to firefighters due to remoteness of the area, as well as steep, rugged terrain.

South Florida Fire & Aviation (SFFA) has seen a significant decrease in the size and complexity of wildfires across south Florida over the past several years. The parks’ goal is to apply prescribed fire on each burn unit every five years. Approximately 50% of these burn unit acres have been treated with prescribed fire since fiscal year 2018.