Prescribed fire is a valuable tool utilized in the management of wildlife habitat, range, forestry, watershed, fuels, and fire dependent vegetation communities. Although most impacts are beneficial, some adverse impacts must be mitigated. Specficially, air quality, water quality, soils, threatened/rare/endangered plants or animals, and cultural resources can be negatively affected. Mitigating measures have been developed which will minimize adverse impacts. Examples are the use of weather, fuel conditions, topography, and season of year in the development of the fire prescription to reduce fire intensity and duration. New technology such as the Helitorch offer an expanded prescriptive ?open window" and greatly reduce the need for fire line preparation. Other measures such as burning when the soil is wet, buffer zones along riparian areas, brush crushing, wet/black/foam lines and various firing techniques all help to lessen negative impacts. Balancing the multiple resource benefits against the mitigated adverse impacts is the real challenge to land managers.
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