The radical environmentalists are the reason these fires get bigger and bigger every year.
The loggers aren't allowed to remove fallen trees....they aren't even allowed to remove the charred timber from the previous years fires.
The moment a logging company tries to do that...the eco-Statists sue the Feds to stop the logging.
Then they get either the state or the Federal interior departments to destroy logging/access roads into the forests that the fire fighters could use to get to the fire and fight it better than having to wait for it to come to them.
I remember during the Clinton years there was a dozer operator that was arrested and fined for cutting a fire road through an area to let the fire fighters get in and put out a blaze that had flared up.
Yes..
Don't forget the anti miners. They pressured the Forest Service to close the roads either by fence or by not maintaining them.
I remember a movie with a night scene showing eyeballs every where at night. This is also true with the squatters living in the woods.
Some kids go into the woods and party and leave a truck load of garbage behind for the FS to clean up.
By closing the woods they have to rely on aircraft to drop wet water as they can't have boots on the ground. When I was a kid they pulled the boys (Including male tourists) out of school to fight the fires. I think I got a buck a day.