The western United States has suffered increasingly disastrous wildfires in recent years. Massive wildfires have attracted considerable attention from the media and policy makers, and have renewed calls to better understand and mitigate wildfire hazards. One of the most widely advocated management practices for reducing the threat of wildfire, supported by a wealth of scientific research, is prescribed fire: controlled burns that help to reduce flammable fuels, such as forest litter accumulating in forests. But is prescribed burning being fully utilized where it is most needed in order to reduce the risk of wildfire? A researcher at the University of Idaho set out to assess whether the U.S. federal land management agencies are translating the best available science and current national fire policies into the increased use of prescribed fire. They did so by analyzing trends in the application of prescribed burns over the twenty-year period 1998–2018. They also sought to assess regional and agency differences in an effort to understand which regions and agencies are increasing their implementation of prescribed fire. Such an increase would be expected given the increased emphasis on controlled fires in both the scientific literature and policy