years of fire suppression and with restoring the natu-
ral role of fire in improving forest growth and wild-
life habitat.
In a normal year, rainfall contains fires. However,
in 1988 Yellowstone experienced its driest season on
record, with 32 percent of normal annual precipita-
tion. The park’s fire season began with a lightning
strike on June 22 that ignited a stand of lodgepole
pine. Buildups of dry fuel combined with high winds
spread the flames rapidly, and by the end of July
almost 99,000 acres had burned. Reacting to in-
creased media attention, park managers elected to
suppress all fires in the park. The single worst day of
the 1988 fire season was August 20, called “Black Sat-
urday,” when 40-mile-per-hour winds pushed a fire-
storm across 150,000 acres. Flames reached two hun-
dred feet in the air. As a result of danger associated
with the fires, many of the park’s roads and facilities
were closed to visitors. On September 6, fire swept
through the Old Faithful area, destroying sixteen
cabins but sparing the Old Faithful Inn. The first
snowfall on September 11 helped contain the fires.
Of fifty fires that burned within Yellowstone in
1988, forty-one were caused by lightning and nine by
human activities. The total area burned within the
park was 793,000 acres, amounting to about 36 per-
cent of the park’s 2,221,800 acres. More than twenty-
five thousand firefighters participated in efforts to
save human life and property. Destruction was lim-
ited to sixty-seven structures worth more than $3 mil-
lion. Remarkably, none of Yellowstone’s famous at-
tractions or historic lodges was damaged by fire.
Impacts on wildlife were also relatively low, given
the magnitude of acreage burned. Field surveys re-
vealed that the number of animals killed included 9
bison, 12 moose, 6 black bears, and 345 elk (out of
an estimated elk population of 40,000). Ample pre-
cipitation during the years immediately following
the fires led to rapid regeneration of trees in most
burned areas.
Impact Nearly twenty years after the 1988 fires in
Yellowstone, many burned areas remained visible.
The Yellowstone fires of that year created a national
debate concerning the natural-burn policy. In the
years immediately following the fires, public land
managers across the United States revised fire man-
agement plans with strict guidelines for circum-
stances under which naturally occurring fires would
be allowed to burn.
Further Reading
Patent, Dorothy H.Yellowstone Fires: Flames and Re-
birth. New York: Holiday House, 1990.
Wallace, Linda.After the Fires: The Ecology of Change in
Yellowstone National Park. New Haven, Conn.: Yale
University Press, 2004.
Thomas A. WikleSee also Environmental movement; Natural disas-
ters.Yuppies
Definition Young, well-educated, well-paid urban
professionals who live an affluent lifestyleThis group emerged as a growing middle class in the United
States during the 1980’s. Yuppies became a dominant polit-
ical and cultural force in society, focusing on successful ca-
reers, economic privilege, and materialism.American journalist Bob Greene of theChicago Tri-
buneis recognized as first individual to use the term
“yuppies” (coined from “young urban professionals”
and later associated with “young upwardly mobile
professionals” as well) in his syndicated column in
March, 1983. Yuppies were an ambitious, competi-
tive, self-reliant, and upwardly mobile class between
the ages of twenty-five and thirty-nine that earned
salaries of more than $40,000 per year.Newsweekde-
clared 1984 as the “Year of the Yuppie,” especially af-
ter Democratic senator Gary Hart ran his presiden-
tial campaign espousing yuppie values.The Yuppie Lifestyle Throughout the decade, an
economic boom occurred in the United States. Ca-
reers in business administration, law, and medicine
became the fastest ways to achieve a good salary and
advancement. Universities and colleges that offered
these programs experienced a dramatic increase in
enrollment. Yuppies held high-paying white-collar
jobs in metropolitan areas. As overachievers, they
brought work home at night and on the weekends
if necessary, living by schedules and appointment
books. Because they spent so much time working,
they needed to live in close proximity to their jobs.
New housing markets sprang up in the inner cities,
and developers began to renovate buildings, turn-
ing them into sleek condominiums or studio apart-
ments designed with postmodern elements.1072 Yuppies The Eighties in America