Firestorm: Last Stand at Yellowstone

The cast was nice looking. That is why I didn't give it a 1. Being a firefighter for 35 years I could not conceive that this movie ever made it through production. There must not have been any technical advice from the National Park Service, National Interagency Fire Center, or any legitimate wild land fire fighting organization. I can not give you the policies and safety requirements that must be met before a firefighter goes on the ground, but it is for sure that this movie misrepresented many of those critical factors. The Park Service would never wait for a fire to reach a half a million acres before it asked for help. I am not going to belabor the whole pointlessness of this movie. The production staff never applied special effects as they are in a real situation. That may have been on purpose for sensationalism, but it tends to give the wrong information. A lack of research evidently. Some of the footage of real forest fires was shown and it did not show lots flame because it is covered by smoke. That is true. The bad special effects showed large tracks of land in 100 foot flames and no smoke. I don't know about the underlying scenario of lack of federal funding, but why should I believe that in a movie so heavily laden if other falsehoods.

I've always considered Irwin Allen disaster movies to be the worst movies about disasters ever made. Among these was "Towering Inferno," which depicted structural firefighting so inaccurately that it seems if was purposely written to be as far from the truth as possible.

I spent my career with the U.S. Forest Service, which is not the agency represented in the movie, rather it is the National Park Service (NPS) that manages the National Parks. I worked closely with the NPS as the National Forests I worked on bordered National Parks and have had a interest in fire ecology since high school, with a career that allowed me to gain a great deal of knowledge and experience on the subject from 1968 to the present.

It is a misnomer that the NPS had a "let burn" policy, in spite of it being widely reported that way. The fires of 1988 were being managed under a natural fire policy and fires were only allowed to burn under prescribed conditions. This policy had been in place for 16 years prior to 1988. During this period only 15 fires became larger than 100 acres. All of these went out on their own. As a Park Ranger I worked with said, who had spent 10 years at Yellowstone, you could not have burned 1/4 acre with a 55 gallon drum of fuel mix (used to start prescribed fires). This is because the Yellowstone Plateau is normally wetter than the rest of the west.

The spring of 1988 was wetter than average. On July 15th 11 of the 20 early season fires had gone out and only 8,500 acres had burned. Then the driest summer in the park's history began, a event no one could have predicted.

I spent five weeks in Yellowstone in 1988 as a crew boss, supervising an Army fire crew.Within two days of arriving there I had the same conclusion the other other 2 crew bosses and the leader of our strike team did. By looking at tree species composition and their ages it appeared as though most of the park had burned naturally 300-500 years prior. All of us had enough education and training sufficient to make this situation as obvious as reading a sign place in front of our faces. Subsequent research has shown 3 cycles of natural widespread, high intensity fires burning every 300-500 years, evidence of fires prior to those three cycles is no longer available. From this one could conclude that dry years like 1988 occur once every 300-500 years. These large fires are very important for wildlife habitat as large, thick forests of Lodgepole pine are not beneficial for the large mammals in the park, particularly elk. The 1988 fires and the reintroduction of the wolf, the natural predator of the elk, has reduced their population to a natural level and the culling of weaker animals has increased the health of the entire population.

The largest of the 1988 fires, the North Fork fire, was over 500,000 acres in size. Unlike the remainder of the fires that summer, this one was human caused. A woodcutter on the adjacent Targhee National Forest threw out a cigarette started the fire. A full suppression (put it out now) response began immediately. Due to the dryness of the summer those efforts were in vain. This is the fire I spent my five weeks on. It was the largest of the summer and had nothing to do with a "let burn" policy.

This movie shows that the producers are completely ignorant of any of this. I would be very surprised if they even cared.

When I heard this movie was going to be on I thought it would be a nice docu-drama of what happened during the fires.

After watching the first ten minutes I knew I was watching something made by someone who didn't know the meaning of research or common sense. How about those two guys watching a fire miles away seconds later get engulfed by flames? Or better, watching the yummy little tart of a ranger, with her form fitting uniform, checking cars/people into the park? No deference to park rangers but they usually aren't moonlighting Playboy bunnies.

Then, the crass special effects watching the fire spread or the silly cartoon of a helicopter....never mind.

The delete button on the DVR was poised for delete but I kept watching more for humor. Like the time Scott Foley and his band of roughneck fire eaters save the town by attempting a feat of self immolation.

It's bizarre that they didn't have the sense to have someone from the NIFC or perhaps even a volunteer firefighter act as a consultant on this goat rodeo. Perhaps they spent all their money of the fine special effects.

Maybe the guys at A&E, where the programming isn't half bad, needed to fill some space and/or were looking to spend their money so they can get better funding for next year. Like the person a comment or two above, the only reason why it didn't get one star was because of the ranger and the entry gate....

As a firefighter and a resident of BC (where the film was made) this Movie truly depicts the stupidity of the US Forestry Service, This "let burn policy" is equivalent to Washington State's current attack strategy where the USFS fails to provide proper support and resources, during last summers Tripod Fire, the largest US Wildfire in 2006 took place, it took USFS 12 days before their first piece of air equipment arrived, that being a BCFS helicopter. The only reason why BCFS sent it down was due to the fact that they knew that stupid fire would cross over into Canada. As for not having consulted any fire agency, the BCFS is the most sought after fire service in the world. Carrying missions all over. As for the commentator who stated the effects of the flame and the helicopter.... Backdraft and Ladder 49 were the same aspect. This film truly examines the faults of the USFS and its negligence

I lived within 12 miles of the fires this is based upon when they occurred in 1988 and this is a gross misrepresentation of the danger, both then and now. I also have been a firefighter and am trained in the use of fireline explosives.

While the sensationalism and misleading information about firefighting and crew relationships may keep the novice viewer on the edge of their seats, it does an injustice to both the opportunity to educate the public and to the crews that fight the fires. The special effects are dramatic, but fires do not simply appear out of nowhere and rangers would not be letting people set up camps, or even picnic, if there was imminent danger. The only thing I see that even comes close to accuracy is the misunderstanding and poor implementation of the "Let Burn Policy". While this did happen in '88, it would not happen today, as those fires served to clarify this policy long ago.

Finally, firefighters in general treat their superiors respectfully, even when they disagree, just as in the military, because their very lives depend on doing so. If they disagreed with a decision they would handle that disagreement by giving feedback with respect for the process that achieves fine-tuning of an evolving and effective plan.

This movie is simply a disservice to the entire process of forest firefighting, and is tacky to boot. Its only saving grace is that it has a pretty decent cast. Unfortunately this isn't enough to redeem what could have been a pretty good film if more thought, consultation with experts, and attention to detail had gone into its production.