Fire management policies emerged as a means of controlling widespread social, economic and ecological impacts of fire. However, it is now recognized that complete fire exclusion is ecologically and economically undesirable, and an operational impossibility. Alternative fire management strategies have been most progressive in wilderness parks, with management plans aimed at perpetuating historical variability associated with natural fire processes. This paper briefly reviews historical variability concepts and the fire history model as a basis for natural fire management in protected areas.Time-since-fire forest age distribution data for Wabakimi Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada, is used to characterize historical variability in boreal forest fire frequency. The implications of this historical variability for future forest and fire management are discussed. © 2003 Khuwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.