Prescribed fire is used in a controlled manner for specific purposes, such as improving habitat and plant community health, and reducing hazardous fuels. The BLM manages the fire program in the Planning Area to protect public safety, life, and property, and uses both wildland fire and fuels treatments. Fire and fuels treatments are management tools to maintain or increase age-class diversity within plant communities (e.g., big sagebrush/grassland); rejuvenate fire-dependent plant communities (e.g., aspen and ponderosa pine); maintain or increase vegetation productivity, nutrient content, and palatability; and maintain or improve wildlife habitat, rangeland, and watershed condition. Fire is also a management tool for disposing of timber slash, preparing seedbeds, reducing hazardous fuels, controlling disease or insects, improving rangeland health, managing livestock grazing, thinning, or manipulating species in support of forest management objectives.

Though treated acres vary widely by year, fire-treated acres have generally declined in recent years in relation to peaks in the mid to late 1990s (prescribed fires) and early 2000s (mechanical treatments) (BLM 2009b).

Concerns about cheatgrass and greater sage-grouse habitat have decreased the feasibility of using prescribed fire in some areas. However, advances in mechanical and chemical vegetation treatment options are making those types of vegetation treatments more feasible.