This Invited Feature focuses on the U.S. national Fire and Fire Surrogate study (FFS), a multi-site multidisciplinary research project that evaluates the ecological consequences of prescribed fire and its mechanical surrogates, treatments that are intended to reduce fire risk and restore resiliency in seasonally dry forests. A comprehensive national FFS study is needed because no large comparative studies have been conducted on alternative fuel reduction methods, even though these methods have been in widespread use by forest management agencies for many years in an effort to mitigate forest conditions that are undesirable and unsustainable. In particular, structure and composition of forests that once experienced frequent, low?moderate-intensity fire regimes have been altered by fire suppression or exclusion, livestock grazing, and preferential harvest of large-diameter trees. These practices have increased tree density, decreased overall tree size, changed species composition, and increased fuel loads. Conservative estimates place over 10 million hectares of forests in the United States in an elevated fire hazard condition, and much of this land area is widely thought to need some form of active management such as prescribed fire, mechanical treatments, or both. The primary goal of the FFS study was to measure and compare the effectiveness and ecological consequences of commonly used fuel reduction treatments. Forest managers throughout the United States have asked for side-by-side comparisons of treatments to better understand the ecological and economic considerations for applying fuel reduction and forest restoration treatments. The intent of FFS fuel reduction treatments was to reduce potential fire risk and create forest structures that are more resilient to disturbance. Similar treatments were applied across a network of sites that included seven sites in the western United States and five sites in the eastern United States. The seven western FFS study sites, although differing in elevation, tree species composition, and productivity, are located in seasonally dry forests that include ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa). The five eastern FFS study sites include two dominated by hardwood trees and three dominated by pines.