A pretty good article, but it doesn't go far enough... Prescribed burns, sure, but forest management, and grassland management is just as important. It is an entire ecology - Without the logging sales, there are no crews, and no machinery, and no roads for firebreaks and access. Without grazing pressure and haying, weeds out pace the grasses and can grow well into 10 feet high... All cracklin brown by the dog days of summer.
Even wildlife and ag husbandry get into the deal - The buckbrush all along this creek out back is ground pruned by the deer... There is literally not a single thing near the ground within the reach of a deer on it's back legs... So there is no dry fuels within 4 ft of the canopy... A fire could conceivably pass right under that brush and never light it up at all. Goats do the same. Heck, throw some hogs at a tangled mess of brushland, come back in a week or two, and it will all be gone. All of it.
And of course, mechanical removal wherever density calls for it. mow it down. Prune it up. park it out. Not only will it be far harder to catch fire, it will be far easier to control and put out.
This is purely bunny-hugger nonsense preaching to let it go wild. Especially in populated areas. but everywhere else too. The options are to manage it or watch it burn. That's really the only two choices.
