America’s National Parks Face Wildfires
A fire close to the Grand Canyon has burned 40,000 acres and is not contained. It is a warning about wildfires in national parks, and particularly those that are remote with areas that are hard to reach. Most of these are in the Western US and Alaska.
The largest public parks by far are in Alaska. The state has six of the largest seven. The largest is Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, which covers 13 million acres. Each of these has forests, and parts of each are remote.
Huge Alaska
The eighth largest park is Yellowstone, which covers 2.2 million acres. At any given time, three or four fires can be burning within its borders. It is large enough and parts are remote enough so that a large fire may continue for days, or longer.
The Grand Canyon is the 11th largest park and covers 1.2 million acres.
Cutbacks in park rangers and the national firefighting force mean that, even in remote areas, the resources to fight fires have been cut back.
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