This thesis examines how illegal, anthropogenic wildland fire affects people's access to and use of resources in the wetlands of the panhandle region of Botswana's Okavango Delta. These fires are often uncontrollable because of their remoteness and intensity, and often range for hundreds of kilometers, until they burn themselves out. Nearly all these fires are started by people, just as they have been for millennia. If fires really were a threat to the people's use of natural resources, why would they set them? How do people view the role of fire in their livelihoods?