Merely throwing billions of our tax dollars at “contractors,” we should have a disciplined analysis of the cost/effectiveness and ensure that the most effective projects get priority. Burning and masticating brush doesn’t last very long and is of limited if any effectiveness, whereas measures aimed at reducing detection and response times with sufficient or greater suppression assets and independent on-site structure suppression systems that will stop some fires before they get started (e.g. ember and ember-ignited) on and in the vicinity of structures and their associated materials are demonstrably superior allocations of scarce resources. Of course, it is imperative that all measures are up to the job and then some. That is simply not the case with large, wind-driven fires. How many time have you seen photos and video footage of a lone firefighter with a three-inch (or smaller) hose impotently spraying water on a wall of flame or a fully-consumed structure? Dramatic, “great” TV, but hardly effective. No firefighter should be asked to take a peashooter to a gunfight.
Merely throwing billions of our tax dollars at “contractors,” we should have a disciplined analysis of the cost/effectiveness and ensure that the most effective projects get priority. Burning and masticating brush doesn’t last very long and is of limited if any effectiveness, whereas measures aimed at reducing detection and response times with sufficient or greater suppression assets and independent on-site structure suppression systems that will stop some fires before they get started (e.g. ember and ember-ignited) on and in the vicinity of structures and their associated materials are demonstrably superior allocations of scarce resources. Of course, it is imperative that all measures are up to the job and then some. That is simply not the case with large, wind-driven fires. How many time have you seen photos and video footage of a lone firefighter with a three-inch (or smaller) hose impotently spraying water on a wall of flame or a fully-consumed structure? Dramatic, “great” TV, but hardly effective. No firefighter should be asked to take a peashooter to a gunfight.