The Encyclopedia of Southern Fire Science (ESFS) synthesizes volumes of scientific knowledge about fire science in the southern United States. ESFS delivers grounded information to field practitioners and the general public with viewer-navigated text, photos, graphics, plus a large bibliography and access to several fire science databases. We hope that ESFS will provide you with the tools that you need to understand and manage fire. Content is organized into 7 categories: 1) Fuels, Weather, and Fire Behavior provides a background for understanding fuels in southern wildlands, fire weather, and fire behavior. 2) Fire Effects describes the effects of fire on air, water, soil, vegetation, and wildlife. 3) Fire Ecology provides state-of-the-knowledge summaries on the fire ecology and management of more than 25 fire adapted communities in the Coastal Plain, Piedmont, Southern Applachians, and Ozark/Ouachita Highlands. 4) Fire and People synthesizes information on the human dimensions of fire including economic, political, cultural, and historical factors. 5) Prescribed Fire summarizes the history of prescribed burning, uses of prescribed fire, important fuel and weather considerations, guidelines for planning and executing prescribed fires, public relations, and state and federal regulations governing prescribed fires. 6) Smoke Management describes models of smoke movement, avoiding and reducing smoke, components of smoke, smoke and air quality, and air quality regulations. 7) Wildfire presents statistics of the occurrence of wildfires in the South, explains the impacts of these wildfires on human health and the local economy, describes new technologies for wildfire detection and strategies for wildfire prevention, mitigation, and rehabilitation. In fall 2005, ESFS will be integrated with the Southern Fire Portal, currently being constructed with funding from the Joint Fire Sciences Program.