You've convinced me that the satellite would probably not in the end recoup it's cost. It makes intuitive sense that the most dangerous and costly fires are those close to civilization that can be reported quickly. I was mentally working with a probability of something like 35%, but it probably should have been something less than 5%, without running any actual analysis.

I wasn't trying to imply that the total figures were the likely savings, which is why I explicitly noted it as the cost of an accelerated response vs. a typical response, whatever that may be.