A need is presented for wood-base materials suitable as Standard Reference Materials (SRM's) for nationwide fire testing. Need is based on increasing trend toward large-scale fire testing and use of non-characterized wood materials indiscriminately as a performance reference for other building materials. Research objectives are outlined and studies needed toward the ultimate goal of recommending a procedural guide for selection and processing of wood-base materials for fire testing to ASTM Subcommittee D07.12 on Fire Performance of Wood and Wood-Base Products. This paper presents results of first study which examined red oak as a candidate material from standpoint of present usage, forest resource, growth variability, and fire performance variability in the 8-foot tunnel furnace. The effort toward red oak as an SRM is abandoned primarily due to anticipated decreased usage. A recommendation is made that a reconstituted wood product be investigated as a potential SRM and the 8-foot furnace (ASTM E 286) be used as the reference standard test method for its evaluation. (Author)