The Influence of Problem Definitions on Environmental Policy Change: A Comparative Study of the Yellowstone Wildfires

In the summer of 1988, television viewers across the U nited S tates and C anada were transfixed by images of Y ellowstone National Park seemingly consumed by flames as wildfires burned almost one million acres of land within the Greater Y ellowstone Area. In the wake of the fires, the governments of the U nited S tates and C anada both reassessed their policy approaches to fire management and came to two very different conclusions. The purpose of this study is to explore how the wildfire problem was defined in C anada and the U nited S tates in the wake of the Y ellowstone wildfires, why these definitions were so different, and what effects these different definitions have had on fire policy. As a subtext, this research also highlights the challenges inherent in science‐based decision making.