BLM to Use Winter Prescribed Burns to Target Wildfire Risks in Wyoming

Fire has always shaped American ecosystems, acting as a natural engine of renewal long before modern settlement.

Today, land managers are leaning into that history as seasonal conditions align for a massive slate of winter prescribed burns across Wyoming.

The Bureau of Land Management reported a comprehensive series of hazardous-fuels treatments scheduled for the fall and winter months. These operations target slash piles left behind from previous forestry work, timber sales, and juniper removal projects. The goal is straightforward: clear out heavy surface fuels before they can feed an uncharacteristically severe wildfire.

Native Americans historically used controlled fire to maintain rangelands and clear underbrush, a principle that modern fire management specialists now scale up with precise weather and topography data. Contemporary prescribed fires are carefully planned to minimize smoke impacts on nearby communities while achieving ecological goals that mechanical thinning alone cannot match.

Crews in the High Desert District are gearing up for multiple burns across the Rawlins and Rock Springs Field Offices. Near Rawlins, personnel will tackle the Morgan Creek Wildland–Urban Interface in the Seminoe Mountains, roughly 30 miles northeast of the city. These burns focus on slash piles generated from hazardous-fuels work designed to protect nearby structures and deeded lands.

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Additional operations are slated for the Corral Creek site, about 15 miles east of Riverside along Barrett Ridge near Carbon County Road 660 and BLM Road 3404, where hand-built piles from juniper-removal work will be torched. Further north near Arlington, machine-built slash piles from the Wagonhound and One-Mile timber sales along the Medicine Bow National Forest boundary are also on the schedule.

Down in the Rock Springs Field Office, attention shifts to the Iron Mountain Fuels Treatment area, roughly 10 miles north of Dutch John, Utah. Crews plan to burn hand-built slash piles across approximately 1,430 acres. The primary objective here is twofold: reduce hazardous accumulation and improve vital forage in big-game winter range.

Western Wyoming’s Kemmerer Field Office holds the heaviest concentration of planned winter operations, spanning multiple ecologically sensitive zones. On the east side of Crawford Mountain, roughly 7 miles south of Sage Junction and 8 miles east of Randolph, Utah, crews will treat approximately 900 acres of conifer encroachment.

The Bear River project aims to protect critical sage-grouse and mule-deer habitat alongside nearby deeded structures. Similar ecological protections drive smaller local interventions. Crews will burn six acres at the Spring Canyon Ranches Wildland-Urban Interface and 12 acres at Commissary Ranches to strip away ladder fuels and dead-and-down material.

Further north, the Pinedale Field Office has lined up the Burdick Fuels Treatment about 10 miles west of La Barge on Miller Mountain. Crews will burn hand-built slash piles across roughly 155 acres to encourage aspen regeneration and clear out bottlenecks in big-game migration corridors.

Across the state in the Wind River and Bighorn Basin District, the Cody Field Office has scheduled operations at Devil’s Canyon, situated 25 miles northeast of Lovell. Running between October 31 and December 20, the project targets roughly 200 to 500 acres of mixed sagebrush, juniper, and grass vegetation.

All prescribed burns remain contingent on strict environmental parameters. Operations proceed only when local weather windows, fuel moisture levels, and air quality indices stay within safe operational limits. Firefighters combine natural barriers with constructed control lines to ensure containment while public safety protocols remain active across every district.