Watch the movie Only The Brave about The Granite Mountain hotshots who lost 19 of 20 hotshots in the Yarnell fire. After watching that movie I did a lot of reading about these types of fires and there is a thought that too much Forrest and chaparral has been allowed to grow too thick which causes these massive fires. You have people living in areas that frankly are like living in a flood plane, except that lightning strikes causes fires all the time.
They need to be doing more controlled burns and it is amazing what citizens can do to keep fires from jumping but it makes their homes very bland, particularly keeping no vegetation around their home for a good circumference. Some of these fires do need to burn and not worth risking fire fighter lives.
We are putting fire fighters at risk because nature naturally burns off vegetation when it gets too thick, protecting areas that have this immense build up of fuel is just helping Mother Nature build a much bigger fire bomb.
People want to live out in the middle of nowhere and expect all these fire fighters to put out all of these fires and help accumulate more fuel and risk their lives while many of these same people do not use proper roof materials, keep gutters clean and covered with grates, keep vegetation cleared and far away from your home, and other debris away. It is amazing the number of homes in these fires like the Yarnell fire survive if they follow the recommended safety guidelines.
Based on my readings on this subject, most forrestry experts would say they were too aggressive in stopping some fires and allowing a buildup of fuel that leads to these massive fires that are hitting heat levels never seen before and moving at speeds never seen before because the fire itself creates a wind from the heat.
That chaparral in the Yarnell fire was horrible combined with the wind that day the firefighters literally got over ran by the fire, they all knew they were going to die, all of them deployed their shelters but they knew they would never survive.
I recommend this movie, true heroes.
