Objectives of the project are as follows: 1. Quantify the initial effects (first five years) of fire and fire surrogate treatments on a number of specific core response variables within the general groupings of (a) vegetation, (b) fuel and fire behavior, (c) soils and forest floor (including relation to local hydrology), (d) wildlife, (e) entomology, (f) pathology, and (g) treatment costs and utilization economics. 2. Provide an overall research design that (a) establishes and maintains the study as an integrated national network of long-term interdisciplinary research sites utilizing a common 'core' design to facilitate broad applicability of results, (b) allows each site to be independent for purposes of statistical analysis and modeling, as well as being a component of the national network, and (c) provides flexibility for investigators and other participants responsible for each research site to augment--without compromising--the core design as desired to address locally-important issues and to exploit expertise and other resources available to local sites. 3. Within the first five years of the study, establish cooperative relationships, identify and establish network research sites, collect baseline data, implement initial treatments, document treatment costs and short-term responses to treatments, report results, and designate FF5 research sites as demonstration areas for technology transfer to professionals and for the education of students and the public. 4. Develop and maintain an integrated and spatially-referenced database format to be used to archive data for all network sites, facilitate the development of interdisciplinary and multi-scale models, and integrate results across the network. 5. Identify and field test, in concert with resource managers and users, a suite of response variables or measures that are: (a) sensitive to the fire and fire surrogate treatments, and (b) both technically and logistically feasible for widespread use in management contexts. This suite of measures will form much of the basis for management monitoring of operational treatments designed to restore ecological integrity and reduce wildfire hazard. 6. Over the life of the study, quantify the ecological and economic consequences of fire and fire surrogate treatments in a number of forest. types and conditions in the United States. Develop and validate models of ecosystem structure and function, and successively refine recommendations for ecosystem management.