This is what California needs to do about its fires | MIT Technology Review
There s an overwhelming to-do list. But one of the clearest conclusions, as experts have been saying for years, is that California must begin to work with fires, not just fight them. That means reversing a century of US fire suppression policies and relying far more on deliberate, prescribed burns to clear out the vegetation that builds up into giant piles of fuel.
Such practices don’t prevent wildfires, says Crystal Kolden, an assistant professor at the University of California, Merced focused on fire and land management. But it breaks up the landscape, so that when wildfires do occur, they’re much less severe, they’re much smaller, and when they occur around communities, they’re much easier to control.
Californians choose the right action, after they have tried everything else. (That’s the optimistic interpretation.)