Wildland fire plays a natural and necessary role in shaping the composition, structure, and ecological processes of many of the world's ecosystems. Species adapations to fire are many and varied; depending on the plant communities present in a given fire regime, fire can help to induce seed release, flowering or fruiting in shrubs, and seral changes in stands with trees having fire-resistent or growth-related fire adaptations. Fire also helps to clear fuel buildup in understories, cleanse areas of disease and insect outbreaks, and/or cycle nutrients into the soil.

In Mountain Prairie's regional ecosystems, fire is especially important to the vegetation ecology of tallgrass prairie and ponderosa pine stands. Formed primarily by cycles of fire and drought, prairie plant communities exhibit the greatest productivity following fire events. With highly fire-resistant bark, ponderosa pines are well-adapted to high frequency, low intensity fires that periodically remove understory fuels leaving open, park-like stands.

Prompted by resource interests (i.e., timber extraction) and social objectives (e.g., protection of homes built along the urban-wildland interface), suppression dominated fire management policies in the U.S. for much of the 20th century. While it remains a prevalent management response in this country, the link between suppression-related fuel build-up and catastrophic wildfires has seen growing recognition, and the advancement of fire science has improved the capacity of managers to address individual fires with more discretion depending on their specific ecological and social contexts.