The Waring Mountains Wildfire of 1988 burned 209,366 acres (84,727 ha) of the Selawik National Wildlife Refuge in NW Alaska, transecting the migration route of the Western Arctic Caribou herd.  This study was undertaken to describe and follow the response of the vegetation after the fire. Sites representing 4 widely distributed vegetation communities were selected for study:  Open black spruce forest, dry shrub-sedge tundra, moist shrub-sedge tundra and low shrub-lichen tundra.  Sites were inventoried 1, 2, 4 and 10 years following the fire.