A now out dated figure for this year, is $ 1.2 Billion, and from what I understand cuts will be made in other places, usually management. So, as a hiker, this largely unnecessary expense has a direct impact on the available forest spending for trail users. It does, after all, come from the same source.
I guess that is directed at me, but I can't tell. Either way, since I was unable to locate the post, I'll say that there was an article posted here in the forum some time ago, 1 year or more, that was about an interview with someone in the forest service who was saying that fighting small fires is easy, and there is basically no hope when it comes to the big ones in the hot dry years. Therefore I draw a conclusion and post here that this fire, in an area with well below mean precipitation for 2 years, and under hot windy conditions, exemplifies the thesis that in these cases all that will happen is the spending of large amounts of money with little more to show for it than if a more conservative approach had been taken. With the exception of structure protection, large 747 tankers dropping surfactant in the wilderness or wilds of the forest, simply to steer it, is little more than an unnecessary expense. The Inciweb reports already state HWY 108 is the ultimate break line, well north of the fire perimeter.
Satellite interpretation of the GPS map Joe posted on the HAZ Website already shows the fire running into bare rock, or what appears to be bare rock, and that, not expensive human measures, will be the ultimate container for the Rim. Just as in the Wallow, the fire was controlled, not because of costly and valiant efforts, but because it hit the near fuel-less grasslands, and became drastically easier to stop. The edges can be steered under the correct conditions, but high winds can blow the fire out of the containment lines. The Schultz spotted over a mile away, so a wind shift perpendicular to the established surfactant drop lines can easily spot beyond the lines, and the cost have little benefit under erratic conditions.
I would be willing to bet, that WUI fire costs are substantially higher on a per capita basis, simply because the density is typically low and the cost high when compared to most other disasters While I don't argue for the complete absence of that sort of thing, I do argue against spending on small fires in wetter years. Steer, control in places around resources, but suppress without regard, no.
http://www.onearth.org/articles/2013/06 ... ire-policy
Some more fun. Returning to 1950 is a fools idea, and one we seem to be pursuing. I remind you again of the suppression of a lightning fire in the Gila Wilderness 3 years ago after a wet winter, 1 and 2 years before large, hot fires came through in erratic, uncontrollable fashion, and the subsequent fires may have been far different, had a fire in 2010 been 50,000 or more acres, instead of 1,000.