I've often wondered why somebody in the gubmint doesn't dust off some of those mothballed bombers sitting down there in the Arizona desert, fit them with huge water/fire retardant tanks, and send them out, squadron formation, to "bomb" the hell out of any forest fire that gets to be a nuisance.
Hell, if we could launch thousand-plane bombing raids against Nazi Germany, surely we could put a couple dozen or so Strato-cruisers in round the clock "bombing" operations against a forest fire. Let it rain!