BRIAN SYBERT

Perspective

After more than a month of blackened skies and reddened eyes, a remarkable story has emerged from the Shoshone National Forest's Gunbarrel Fire since late-summer snows doused the last embers over Labor Day weekend.

Rather than point angry fingers of blame and demanding policy changes, Cody area residents, visitors and business owners generally took the 67,141-acre fire in stride. Lodge owners along the North Fork of the Shoshone River and their guests were remarkably patient, most of them recognizing even as they worried about vital summer revenues and long-planned summer vacations that nature was due for a wholesale cleansing of the North Absaroka Wilderness Area's beetle-killed trees.

Sure, a month of smoke-filled skies can get tiresome. Yet most of us who love the forest and have suffered through the recent drought understood that a fire of this magnitude was inevitable. And now that cooler weather and early snows have extinguished the fire, we also know we can look forward to witnessing first-hand forest regeneration not unlike the aftermath of the Yellowstone National Park fires of 1988.

Hunters certainly will soon notice a dramatic change for the better. Similar to Yellowstone, the Gunbarrel Fire left a mosaic of healthy and burned forest in its wake, creating prime elk and bighorn sheep habitat. By burning dead and dying trees, the blaze also returned nutrients to the soil that will awaken rich plant life, improve habitat for grizzly bear and other wildlife, and ultimately even enhance the North Fork of the Shoshone River's renowned trout fishery.

Meanwhile, the lodges along the North Fork remain intact, the fire giving their 2008 guests memories for their scrapbooks and their future visitors the rare opportunity to witness a forest rebirth.

For that, the managers of the Shoshone National Forest and the firefighters who watched over - and, in some cases, battled - the Gunbarrel are to be commended. It was the Shoshone's leaders who had the foresight and leadership to recognize that large-scale wildland fires are critical to the integrity of a healthy landscape, and it was the firefighters who stepped in when necessary to ensure that livelihoods were kept out of harm's way.

The Shoshone's revolutionary approach toward the North Fork corridor in the past five years paid dividends this summer in at least two important ways:

-- By carefully removing stands of beetle-killed trees and conducting prescribed burns, forest managers had created defensible space that helped firefighters protect human-occupied structures and keep open the road between Cody and Yellowstone at the high point of tourist season.

-- By creating appropriate fire breaks in the North Fork corridor, managers were able to gain a level of confidence that a wildland fire could burn without threatening human life and property.

More than five years ago, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition began working with the Shoshone to help ensure that its proposal to remove beetle-killed trees moved forward

In the end, Shoshone officials did a laudable job implementing the plan in a way that maintained that North Fork corridor's backcountry character. Their balancing act limited the use of temporary roads and allowed nature to take its course in unroaded areas. These efforts protected the Shoshone River from sedimentation and reduced impacts on Cody Country's extraordinary wildlife resources.

From all accounts, the Shoshone's philosophy has been an unqualified success story -- one that other national forests in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and in the West would do well to emulate.

Wildland fire is always unpredictable and no doubt this one was at times a little too close for some peoples' comfort. Business owners along the North Fork who spent a month casting worrisome glances at the smoky skies to the north deserve credit for their extraordinary patience, understanding and fortitude.

By allowing the Gunbarrel Fire to run most of its course, though, we have the opportunity to look back and learn how wildland fire can be returned to our national forests while at the same time taking measures to protect lives, livelihoods and property.

After all, it's safe to assume that we'll again see fires of the Gunbarrel's magnitude on the Shoshone and other forests.

Even more exciting is that we also have a unique opportunity to look forward and watch a sizeable chunk of the Shoshone regenerate and restore its unparalleled wildlife habitat, much like Yellowstone over the past two decades.

Indeed, now that our blackened skies and reddened eyes have cleared, we can see that the future of the Shoshone National Forest will truly be a sight to behold.

Brian Sybert, Wyoming director for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, lives in Cody.