Forest Service Research Natural Areas are established to preserve examples of all significant natural ecosystems for comparison with those influenced andlor managed by humans, to provide educational and research areas for ecological and environmental studies, and to preserve gene pools for typical and rare and endangered species. The Research Natural Area program in the Northern Rockies and Pacific Northwest regions attempts to protect a wide spectrum of terrestrial and aquatic communities in their "natural" state. At least 79 of the 246 established and proposed Research Natural Areas in these regions represent forest and grassland types that have been adapted to frequent fires over the last several hundred to thousands of years.