"Lessons Learned" is a series of publications that are a brief recounting of actual school emergencies and crises. This "Lessons Learned" issue focuses on the response and recovery efforts to wildfires by the San Diego County Office of Education (SDCOE) and its school and community partners. Natural disasters such as floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires, and tornadoes can strike a community with great force and leave it devastated. The October 2007 San Diego wildfires consumed approximately 369,000 acres or about 13.6 percent of the county's total land mass, including an estimated 1,600 homes, 800 outbuildings, 253 other structures, 239 vehicles, and two commercial properties. Costs incurred to contain the fires are estimated at $41.3 million. The total projected damage costs are expected to exceed $1.5 billion. Lessons learned by SDCOE point to the importance of collaboration and communication between SDCOE and the school districts as well as between the SDCOE and the county support agencies. These lessons may be used not only to help mitigate future damage from wildfires in this area but also to develop generalized lessons for the field. Collaboration and communication are essential; no one agency can successfully manage a crisis alone. The SDCOE's lessons learned regarding the handling of a natural disaster emergency should assist schools and school districts nationwide to further collaborate with local agencies, establish contact lists prior to a crisis, develop decision trees, require direct deposit of personnel paychecks, and acquire mass notification systems. (Contains 2 footnotes.) [For Volume 3, Issue 1 of this series, see ED504385.]