In an effort to unbury the past and to increase both institutional memory and organizational learning within the wildland fire community, the authors approached the editorial staff of Fire Management Today with the idea of republishing a selection of these past fire-behavior- related articles. We are pleased that they took us up on our suggestion. This special issue of Fire Management Today begins a series of three consecutive issues with articles related to fire behavior. This issue contains the first of two installments of articles involving fire behavior case studies and analyses of wildfires; examples pertaining to prescribed fires are not included (e.g., Custer and Thorsen 1996). The 19 case studies and analyses in this issue are presented in chronological order, from 1937 to 1967. The third issue in this series will be devoted to aids, guides, and knowledge-based protocols involved in forecasting wildland fire behavior for safe and effective fire suppression.