In the summer of 1988, wildfires burned across huge stretches of Yellowstone. Many people grieved, convinced the park they loved was ruined. Lodgepole pines make up nearly 80 percent of Yellowstone’s forests, and some of their cones are sealed shut with resin. Those cones won’t release their seeds until the resin melts at about 113 degrees Fahrenheit, which usually means a fire. The fire clears away the litter on the forest floor and opens the canopy to sunlight, just what the seedlings need. Decades later those burned slopes are covered with young forests again. The very thing that looked like the end is what released the next generation.
