'Can Southern California Wildland Conflagrations Be Stopped?' (Countryman 1974) is the title of what I feel is one of the more important publications on the subject of fuels management presently available. The publication was written by Clive M. Countryman, a noted wildland fire behavior scientist with the USDA Forest Service based in southern California from 1941 until his retirement in the late 1970s. This publication was written following the 1970 fire season in California (and no doubt was prompted by it) in which 16 lives were lost, more than 200 000 ha of land was burned over, and some 700 homes were destroyed. Countryman's (1974) 11-page publication consists of three major sections involving 17 sub-sections each of which directly imparts a statement or conclusion worth noting.