In 2020, a 3-year-old suffered second-degree burns on the lower body and back, and a tourist who entered the park illegally fell into a thermal feature near Old Faithful.
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Since 1870, 22 people have died in the park after falling into the pools and geysers. One of the most recent deaths, in 2016, involved a man trying to soak in a geyser in the park. The man fell into the water and was boiled to death.
A 19-year-old was badly burned from an iconic geyser in Yellowstone National Park, officials said. Park rangers helped the woman at Old Faithful on Thursday. She had second- and third-degree burns over 5% of her body, park rangers said.
Those parts of the surrounding states of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming that are closest to Yellowstone would be affected by pyroclastic flows, while other places in the United States would be impacted by falling ash (the amount of ash would decrease with distance from the eruption site).
However, Yellowstone is also an active geothermal area with hot springs emerging at ~92°C (~198°F) (the boiling point of water at Yellowstone's mean altitude) and steam vents reported as high as 135°C (275°F).
Indeed, periods of decreased precipitation have been shown in modern times to result in less frequent eruptions of Old Faithful, and the new research indicates that severe, long-duration droughts can terminate eruptions. For now, Old Faithful remains just that—faithful, with eruptions occurring about every 90 minutes.