A wildfire in the backcountry of Yellowstone National Park has nearly doubled in size, to 2,119 acres, in the past 24 hours, but it doesn't pose a threat to visitors or park structures or roads.

A fire in the backcountry of Yellowstone National Park has grown to cover more than 1,100 acres, but firefighters are monitoring the blaze, preferring at this time to let it burn naturally.

“We are all travelers in the desert of life, and the best we can find in our journey is an honest friend.” — Robert Louis Stevenson.

For nearly a century, a popular story has linked the origins of the National Park Service to the genius of one man. In 1914, Stephen T. Mather, a self-made millionaire in the borax industry, visited Yosemite and Sequoia national parks. Finding both of them poorly managed he wrote Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane and complained. “Dear Steve,” Lane allegedly replied, “If you don’t like the way the national parks are being run, come on down to Washington and run them yourself.”