If a fire is located in a remote area and poses no threat to people or property, it may be monitored from the air. NPS

Evaluation of Wildland Fires

Wildland fire managers must constantly assess the threat of human-caused fire to wildlands and the threat of wildland fires to humans.

When wildfires begin, two major questions are asked:

Does the wildfire threaten people and/or their personal property?

Where is the wildfire located—in a forest or grassland, or in a human-dominated landscape?

Where people and property are threatened, all efforts are made to extinguish the fire. In some locations, such as large national parks and forests and where the wildfire is started by lightning, a natural fire may be permitted to burn its course to benefit the ecosystem. In these cases, natural barriers may contain a fire to within a specific area.

By more fully understanding wildfire, managers can better plan for potential desirable and undesirable effects of wildfires. Although managers can be prepared, they cannot predict when or where fires are going to occur.