It's become a near-annual occurrence. A massive wildfire forces thousands of people to flee their homes. Exhausted firefighters warn of its speed and intensity. Smoke smothers cities and states hundreds of miles away. The yearly eruption of hundreds of wildfires across the West is no longer surprising. What's surprising is "our society's ability to continue to tolerate" lives lost and billions of dollars in damages and firefighting costs, year after year, says Tom Harbour, the former director of fire and aviation at the U.S. Forest Service. Especially, he says, when we know of ways to reduce the risk. The wave of fires that erupted this week on the West Coast, like previous record-breaking blazes, are further validation of something forest ecologists and fire veterans have been saying for years: that no amount of firefighting resources will avert the next big wildfire. Nine of the top 10 largest wildfires in California history have occurred in the last decade despite massive
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