I felt very fortunate to have been able to participate in all three phases of the Dude Fire Staff Ride that took place on March 3-5, 1999. Like the other staff ride participants, I found the whole experience to be extremely beneficial to my gaining a deeper understanding of the complexities involved in fire behavior and the associated firefighter fatalities resulting from the major run of the Dude Fire on the afternoon of June 26, 1990. I am thus greatly honored to have been asked to contribute this essay for the special issue of Fire Management Today dealing with the Dude Fire Staff Ride. I sincerely hope that the comments offered here, based in part on the Dude Fire Staff Ride experience coupled with a 30-year career in wildland fire, will lead to enhancements as well as extensions of the staff ride concept in the future for training fire behavior analysts (FBANs) and in further developing firefighter safety awareness training.