Principal photography began on May 15, 1989; production took place in northwestern Montana in the Kootenai National Forest, with some scenes filmed in and around Libby. Some 500 of its residents were recruited for the film as extras to act as wildland firefighters. The scenes where the plane flies over the lake at the beginning and lands in the lake at the end of the movie were filmed at Bull Lake, south of Troy. The scenes set in "Flat Rock, Colorado," were filmed at and around the Ephrata airport in eastern Washington. The scene where Pete and Hap are walking through the wheat field was filmed at Sprague, southwest of Spokane, where they spent two weeks filming in June. Footage of Yellowstone National Park's 1988 fires was used for the fire sequences. Production wrapped in August 1989. Hepburn retired from acting and died in 1993.