1889	Establishment of the first wildland fire control programme. Set up in Adirondacks Reserve, New York.Management was to extinguish all fires regardless of severity.
1910	An aggresive campaign of fire prevention and control following the catastrophic blazes killing 79 firefighters and burning 5 million acres.
1926	Policy adopted allowing 10 acres or less to burn, but all fires over 10 acres to be suppressed.
1933	Strict no burn policy. All fires to be extinguished during a firefighters first duty shift or by 10 am the following day. This was in wake of the Tillamook fire.
1971	Light fires allowed to burn as natural prescribed fires.
1978	Emphasis shifted to managing fire suppression costs consistent with resource management strategies.
1988	Changes to policy included the allowance of natural fires to burn on federal wildland. A question of the urban/wildland interface became controversial.
1994	Following a disastrous fire season, revision of fire management policies in history took place. The fire policy that followed offered increasing fire fighter and public safety, decreasing fire suppression costs and damage, whilst also protecting ecosystems that had been adversely altered by a century of fire suppression. Fire inclusion compensated for fire exclusion.
1995	The role of fire has an essential ecological process was incorporated into the planning process. Every area containing burnable vegetation must have a corresponding approved fire management plan.
1996	Involvement of the public in fire management.
2001	A review and update of the federal fire policy. This repeatedly emphasised the importance of the role of fire management planning.