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Fire managers choose between a variety of strategies when suppressing wildfires. While managing fires can be complicated and challenging, the basic principles of fire are relatively simple. Fire needs three elements to ignite and continue to burn: oxygen, heat, and fuel. To stop a fire's spread, one of the three elements has to be removed to break the fire triangle. Taking away the third component, fuel (burnable vegetation) is the method often employed by fire crews.

Simply put, when a moving fire runs low on fuel -- just like a vehicle driving down the highway -- it slows down and can affect both the fire's progression and spread. Vegetation can be mowed, scraped to bare mineral soil by a hand tool or dozer, or strategically burned if conditions allow. The latter, burning, can quickly treat a larger area in front of an approaching fire and create a sturdy, fuel-free barrier. It’s also an option in steep terrain where it’s unsafe or not possible to put firefighters or equipment.

Firefighters use a variety of tools and methods to apply fire to the ground in order to remove fuels. Most commonly, firefighters carry drip torches, which are handheld canisters that drip flaming liquid fuel on the materials to be burned.

If fire needs to be applied into areas firefighters cannot access on foot, they can use small chemical-filled plastic spheres injected with glycol, a compound used in common products like antifreeze. The spheres are dropped from a helicopter or an Unmanned Aerial System (UAS, or drone). The combining of the glycol with the chemicals creates heat that ignites the spheres when they are on the ground.

Rocky Mountain Complex Incident Management Team Two conducted a small test fire late on Tuesday to assess the feasibility of doing a burnout operation on the northeast corner of the fire where additional containment is a key part of the management strategy. The team utilized the UAS method, also known as aerial ignition, because of the steep topography there. They will continue today to ensure weather conditions are conducive to continue the operation and whether they are achieving the type of fire behavior that will prove beneficial to containment efforts.