Prescribed Fire Applications: Restoring Ecological Structure and Process in

The decision to include the fire process as part of a restoration treatment for a particular forest site is most logically made in conjunction with the decision for a silvicul-tural treatment. In other words, forest managers do not typically wait to visually or quantitatively evaluate the post harvest site before deciding whether or not to apply fire. Each phase of the restoration effort can effectively relieve only certain aspects of forest problems. So, silviculture and fire are complementary. Several common silvicultural objectives have been pre-sented. Likewise, it is important to establish specific fire effects objectives so that the proper fire prescription can be developed and applied. Following is a short list and descrip-tion of some typical fire effects goals that are meant to correct undesirable forest conditions