I’d like to buy into your notion about those teens trying to do something right, but there are long odds against finding teens with the basic awareness of what a back fire is, some general idea how to set one, and the combination of personal initiative, community-mindedness, and the outright cojones to actually go DO it.
Maybe — just MAYBE — you’re right, and I’ll just hope that you are, until/unless future input proves otherwise. In the middle of a disaster like this, I’m happy to extend the benefit of the doubt to anyone who even LOOKS like they may be trying to do something effective to help.
I would think that in this area, which is prone to frequent brush fires, there would actually be a lot of teenagers who understand the concept of a protective back fire. It’s the sort of thing I’ve seen discussed in the past on national news coverage of western fires, and I would think local news would likely give even more detail. Even teenagers who don’t normally pay much attention to the news are likely to have been watching it during previous nearby fires, as their nervous parents kept the TV on the news channel and talked about friends in the area 9and maybe even themselves) possibly having to evacuate.
Now whether that’s what these particular teens had in mind in obviously not knowable. I’m not familiar with the area, so I don’t know if the high school in question is the sort that’s overrun with druggies and gang members, or the sort that’s got lots of Eagle Scouts and such. If the latter, I think there’s a decent chance it was kids trying to help.