This paper provides an overview on the fundamental characteristics associated with the behaviour of free-burning fires as it influences fire control operations, based primarily on a review of the overseas literature and current developments in the field of wildland fire management. Particular emphasis is placed on the critical importance of fast, aggressive initial attack in relation to elapsed time since ignition as the severity of burning conditions increases in order to avert the potential for large, costly fires in forest and rural areas. The threat of wildfires can probably never be entirely eliminated, but hopefully a larger percentage of future occurrences can be suppressed at much smaller sizes than at present by more fully incorporating considerations of fire behaviour into training, planning and operations than is currently the case in New Zealand fire protection.