I may be wrong here, but I beleive that the poster was referring to having permanent fire breaks present before the fire occured. The firefighters are creating fire breaks where they see fit - no law will stop them if there is one. And, no policeman will arrest them for doing so. The Ff's will cut trees and bulldoze anywhere they want to stop the fire.
Nevertheless, occasional fire breaks permanently set up might have been effective in helping contain these fires. Its hard to tell when the strong winds are blowing embers about over such great distances. Heck, fire jumped a 10-lane interstate freeway the other day. That's probably as wide as any built-in fire break.