Grand Canyon, Ariz.–National Park Service (NPS) fire managers anticipate initiating prescribed fire treatment for the Shoshone Rx during the week of April 27 as weather and fuel moisture conditions allow. The Shoshone Point Rx is within the developed area on the South Rim, is 1,035 acres in size and comprised primarily of pinon juniper and ponderosa pine.Objectives specific to the Shoshone Rx include improving the defensible space in the Wildland/Urban Interface (WUI) within the South Rim developed area.

Prescribed fires play an important role in decreasing risks to life, resources, and property. Fire managers carefully plan prescribed fires, initiating them only under environmental conditions that are favorable to assuring firefighter and visitor safety and to achieving the desired objectives. Prescribed fire objectives include reducing accumulations of hazard fuels, maintaining the natural role of fire in a fire-adapted ecosystem, and protection of sensitive cultural and natural resources.

Fire managers are working with the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality- Smoke Management Division to reduce and mitigate potential smoke impacts.

Plans for each burn unit contain a set of parameters which define the desired weather and fuel conditions under which a prescribed fire can be initiated. Prior to implementing the burns, fire managers will evaluate current conditions and will only begin ignition if the prescribed conditions are within those parameters.