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A comment on US Forest Service decision to halt prescribed burns in ca is history repeating. Parent comment

Re:US Forest Service decision to halt prescribed burns in ca... by prawn on Monday November 04, 2024 @06:58PM (#42047367)
This always amazes me when visiting the US. I'm from a dry part of Australia where bushfires are a regular summer threat, but the smoke seems to dissipate quite quickly. In the US, I've driven more than once for a week across areas where the sky is thick from smoke coming from a fire 1-2 states away. And it's a fire that started weeks prior.

It struck me last trip that an adversary so inclined could really sap lives, morale and resources from huge areas of the country by having rogue individuals secretly starting fires on top of regular lightning and firebug sources.

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Re:US Forest Service decision to halt prescribed burns in ca... by darknavi on Monday November 04, 2024 @07:53PM (#42047662)
Japan tried to do exactly that in WWII, albeit remotely:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu-Go_balloon_bomb

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Re:US Forest Service decision to halt prescribed burns in ca... by shepherdjerred on Monday November 04, 2024 @08:27PM (#42047820)
On the topic of WWII incendiary bombs, the US also had some interesting programs!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bomb

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Re:US Forest Service decision to halt prescribed burns in ca... by rjrdi38dbbdb on Monday November 04, 2024 @07:15PM (#42047467)
In forested areas, it really could become a new form of terrorism that's practically impossible to defend against.
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Re:US Forest Service decision to halt prescribed burns in ca... by UniverseHacker on Tuesday November 05, 2024 @01:07AM (#42048973)
Please keep this idea to yourself, or delete it if you can
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Re:US Forest Service decision to halt prescribed burns in ca... by jerf on Tuesday November 05, 2024 @09:21AM (#42051646)
The news is wise enough not to make a huge deal of it, but a non-trivial number of the last bunch of fires were determined to be arson. It's hardly even a stretch to imagine that the arsonists might not have been just random folk who thought it'd be really cool to start a fire.

Then again, when a casual arsonist can set significant fractions of a state or even country on fire, and there's millions of people living in the area, and when "pyromania" is sufficiently common enough that it's got it's own entry in the DSM [1] (with estimated incidence at 1.13% (!)), it probably counts as an unnecessary complication to the explanation. There's no way 1.13% of "millions of people" can be stopped. The only solution is to not let the powder keg be created in the first place.

[1]: https://www.theravive.com/therapedia/pyromania-dsm--5-312.33...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:US Forest Service decision to halt prescribed burns in ca... by prawn on Tuesday November 05, 2024 @07:59PM (#42056552)
If it’s not already, national security budgeting should come into play? Beyond lives at stake, things like morale would impact economy/productivity.
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