No, firefighting is not trivial from a decision making perspective. Deluges cause severe water damage, even in the best circumstances where they ultimately save the day. Firebreaks have a moderate failure rate and can even help propagate fire if the wind is wrong. Backfires literally fight fire with fire. They all involve heavy tradeoffs and severe uncertainty, but as a culture we accept that these are necessary aspects of firefighting, and that even with such inherent uncertainty we want timely action rather than "wait forever and see."

It's actually a good analogy, it just points to exactly the opposite conclusion from the one you drew.