The decision process involved in developing any plan to manage a prescribed natural fire must consider several divergent resource and management goals. In many cases, these fires may be projected to be, and eventually become, large and long-duration events. The exact final fire location, size, intensity, and timing of its movements will be largely uncertain. The fire will be largely defined by weather events. The uncertainty of these factors requires managers to closely consider the reality of their perceptions. In doing so, they must ultimately qualify and quantify resource objectives as input to the initial decisions involved in developing each individual fire plan.