Yellowstone burned for three months in 1988, destroying more than 600,000 hectares of forest. The fire resisted the best efforts of 25,000 firefighters and only flickered out with the first snow in mid-September of that year. This catastrophic wildfire in the western U.S. may have heralded a new era of bigger and more frequent fires thanks to climate change, according to new research.
Researchers compared this fire record to annual snowmelt and temperatures over the 34-year period to determine whether global climate, which has warmed by 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit.