Firefighters have successfully completed the first phase of the Coulter Mesa controlled burn.

Firefighters from the upper Colorado river fire management unit burned 385 acres, about 13 miles northeast of Rifle.

The Coulter Mesa prescribed fire is one of several prescribed fires that federal managers hope to complete this spring.

The controlled burns aim to improve wildlife habitat and ecosystem health.

There is a larger controlled burn scheduled for next week that will use a helicopter to ignite those burns.

Fire officials hope to burn a total of 12–hundred acres of oak brush and mountain shrubs with this fire.