Though fires still are burning within Rocky Mountain National Park, they are in remote locations, allowing park staff to begin assessing the losses the park suffered from wildfires this year.

While a snowstorm dumped a fair amount of snow on the East Troublesome Fire at Rocky Mountain National Park, the wildfire continues to smolder and is not fully contained and the park remains closed.

The 1988 wildfires that drew the nation's attention to the world's first national park were considered simply part of the fire regime that historically has existed in Yellowstone National Park. But in the aftermath of the fires, "climate change" entered the country's lexicon and increasingly intense wildfires have forced the National Park Service in the West to both evaluate and refine its approach to battling flames that are arriving with greater and greater ferocity.