Mechanical thinning and prescribed fire treatments were applied in late 2005 and early 2006 to naturally regenerated forests dominated by red pine, Pinus resinosa, in the Muskrat Lakes area of Upper Michigan. Treatment goals included reducing basal area, favoring large trees and favoring white pine, Pinus strobus, in order to move stands towards desired future conditions that included high structural diversity with an increased proportion of white pine. The study design incorporates three blocks of four treatment areas of at least 10 hectares each. Four treatments (mechanical treatment alone, fire alone, a combination of mechanical treatment and prescribed fire and untreated control) were randomly assigned to the four treatment areas in each block. Pre-treatment data were collected to characterize forest conditions in 2004 and 2005. In 2006 post-treatment data were collected to describe the short term effects of the treatments on the overstory trees, understory plant communities, ground dwelling arthropods, and shoot blight pathogens in the genera Sirococcus and Diplodia. In addition, initial damage to the residual stand by fire, red turpentine beetle (Dendroctonus valens), pine engraver (Ips pini) and other damaging agents was evaluated.