From the text...'Over a period of less than 10 days in autumn 1993, the southern California landscape exploded in massive wildfires that burned more than 80,00 ha (Keeley 1995). This ecological phenomenon presented an unparelleled opportunity for answering questions about the ecology and management of disturbance-prone ecosystems. Opportunities presented by this unusual event included: 1. Fires occurred over an extensive range, > 150 km north/south and from the coast to 80 km inland. Thus, a wide range of environmental site characteristics were represented. 2. Fires burned more or less simultaneously, thus factoring out seasonal effects in comparisons of sites. 3. A wide range of age classes was represented. Due to the intense Santa Ana Winds, fires burned through young as well as old age stands (our study sites ranged from 3 to 85 years of age prior to the fire and thus comparisons could be made between sites which differed in their disturbance histories.) 4. Fire intensities were apparently quite varied, as evidenced by the obvious differences in fire severity (measured by the diameter and height of skeletal remains). Thus, the role of disturbance intensity on the structuring of postfire communities could be examined. 5. Many different resource management agencies had jurisdiction over burned landscape and thus both active and passive postfire management techniques were available for comparison. This paper summarizes findings of a study that monitored 90 sites, across 16 fires, for immediate postfire community recovery