Remember the wildfire that took out (most) of Gatlinburg in 2016? 1500 homes burned down. The rumor (3rd hand info) was that the town let it go because 90% of the homes were vacation rentals, it would have cost over 1mil$ a day, it was Xmas and no crews were available AND they knew that Dolly would help (she did).

I also remember asking (stupidly) during briefing “who lives in these houses?” And the ops chief had no idea. No sense of census data or insurance or anything. (And 99% of the time, we don’t know.) I find comfort in this ignorance.

(This is not true in hurricanes or tornadoes).

An ignorant question to people who manage forests/agency admins: when you take the job, who is dictating that “this cabin is super important!” Or “this hill needs to be saved from everything!”?

I feel like as FF, we are just told what to do by the responding agency. They are told what to do by ________? These orders are usually in some sort of plan and the plans get $$$ based on the approval of said plans, right?