” quite another to burn federal lands”
That is another Constitutional question.
According to the Constitution all lands in the States not privately owned shall be State owned. Since about the time of the Civil War and the Statehoods of the western states this was changed to Federal lands.
So, effectively the Federal government owns most of the land in the western states not the states themselves.
If that were the case the problem would be solved (more or less).
Was it actually wrong under the circumstances apart from the legal technicalities. Would a sane Federal management have permitted the burns?
So, can the feds own this land constitutionally or not?
I believe that only applied to the states that signed the Constitution. My understanding is that most of the territories that became states after the ratification of the Constitution were created in such a way that most of the unoccupied land was deemed federal territory.
I believe that the founders of these early states were fine with that. They didn't want to be responsible for land that no one occupied.
If the people of a particular state want to take control of the land within their states they may have to buy it back from the Feds if the Feds will let them.
If the federal deficit gets bad enough, there may be opportunities in the not too distant future for financially secure states to purchase back federal lands to do with as they please.
Go back to court