[Comment Not Approved]

I worked fires for five years here in Montana. Fires are allowed to grow to the size that requires resources to fight them. IOW, there is a lot of money that is set aside, budgeted, to fight the fires and thousands of seasonal jobs that depend on them.

If they are put out too quickly ... nobody gets paid.

[Kaslin]

That makes sense

[Colorado Doug]

I worked fires for five years here in Montana. Fires are allowed to grow to the size that requires resources to fight them. IOW, there is a lot of money that is set aside, budgeted, to fight the fires and thousands of seasonal jobs that depend on them. If they are put out too quickly ... nobody gets paid.

Ding ding ding! We have a winner. There is a lot of money in fires. Most research money now goes not into technologies to put out fires but to software to track fires as they watch them burn.