Is allowing multiple trunks the most common way to prune fig trees? Has anyone had success using only a dominant trunk and keeping the variety fairly dwarfed? I'm wondering on the feasibility of limiting my figs to only one main leader and keeping them headed at 8' as I do my other fruit trees. Thanks!

Tom del Hotal gave a great pruning presentation at the northern San Diego CRFG. The whole presentation is on YouTube: 

I'm still not clear on the optimal pruning shape for figs in my climate. In the above video, Tom states that without exception, fruit trees that are not in the Prunus family are best trained to a central leader. So far, I don't think I've seen many picks of other people's fig trees pruned that way. I see most of you doing not only open vase, but more often a multi-trunk bush. I would love to see some examples of mature fig trees trained to a central leader. Is Tom wrong about this?

By the way, in my climate, there is very little frost - just some occasional cold nights. Trees barely go dormant. We get plenty of heat and sun for many months. 

If you have an orchard like they do at UC Davis with many acres with which to play, you can prune to one trunk and form a canopy with each trunk being several feet from the others in all directions.  The nature of figs is to sucker.  They will often put out new trunks at ground level, so these must be pruned off to keep the tree pruned to one trunk.  This also works if you want ONE fig tree in your back or front yard.

If you don't have tons of acres, but would like many varieties full of many fig fruits, many members here opt for the bush type pruning.  All the trunks and branches provide places for many figs to grow at a reachable height.  Most figs will produce as many trunks as you allow, and it can get out of hand.

If you prune too aggressively, you may lose your Breba crop.

There are no rules.  It just depends on the look and production you as an individual wish to have.

Suzi

I think it depends on the climate zone you are in.

For my z6a a single trunk would be very risky to fig tree survival. 
I find growing the figs bush style (multiple 3-5 trunks) increases the tree's chance for survival and ensures you get lots of fruiting wood to produce figs. 

If I understand Tom correctly, you can keep a tree at any size, even with a central leader (or possibly a modified central leader). Don't make any heading cuts. Do pruning in late summer. If a tree gets too tall, bend down the central leader and promote a weak leader to become a new central leader with a drop-crotch cut.

This is what I have been attempting with my apple trees. If one of them gets too tall, I will bend it down so that the central leader is no longer the leader. Even if there is no weak leader, one will grow after doing this. I don't have any long term experience, so I was hoping to find someone who has done this over a longer period of time.

I do have one fig tree that grew to 11 feet tall three times last year! I cut it back to a weak leader each time, but that sucker wants to touch the sky. When it leafs out this year, I think I may bend it over completely, hoping to get a weak leader lower down. So far, scaffold branches have only appeared above 5 foot level. It is already 1 1/2" caliper at the base, so I can imagine that eventually, bending it over won't be an option any longer.

Maybe figs are the exception and can't be kept small on a central leader.

I have also heard that in colder climates you are better off pruning to get a multi-trunked open vase shrub.  That's what I try to achieve with my pruning i.e. about 3-4 main trunks.  However, I've never understood why a shrub with 3-4 smaller diameter trunks would withstand the cold better than a shrub with one much thicker trunk.  Can anyone provide an explanation for this?  I do agree with Suzi though that if you are limited on space (which I am) and want to squeeze in a lot of varieties into a small space that it makes more since to maintain the figs as multi-trunked shrubs and prune them down quite a bit each year.