Prescribed fire is an integral tool for the maintenance and restoration of rangelands.  Prescribed fire in rangelands has been restricted primarily to dormant periods of plant growth, but more recently, the application of fire in the growing season has increased with the aim of increasing fire intensity, resulting in greater fire effects on woody plants.  The increased use of summer fire concerns some that fire practitioners may not be able to conduct prescribed fires in a safe and effective manner.  For successful implementation of prescribed fire to continue, it is critical that we develop a detailed understanding of the factors driving fire behavior in the growing season. Currently, five critical variables, temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, fuel load, and slope are used to determine “safe” burning conditions in rangelands (Wright and Bailey 1982).  We evaluate the degree with which these and other variables predict fire intensity, rate of spread, and fire extent for 19 summer fires conducted at the Texas A&M Agricultural Experiment Station near Sonora, Texas.  We found that many of the variables used currently are either redundant or do not drive fire behavior in the growing season.  With these findings, we propose a new framework that can be applied across all seasons and more directly links fuels and weather to fire behavior.