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Proactively thinning selective regions of forests and controlled burns seem to be the route forward to prevent (rather than react to) large-scale fires.

This short video from MinuteEarth, while not going into much detail, does have a lot of good references

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NX1xnWPSjKg

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As somebody who has had hands-on experience doing fire mitigation work. Calling the work 'labor intensive' is a severe understatement. Especially, in remote areas.

The problem partly has do to with the lack of zoning laws in forested regions. People build wherever they want, usually in locations that are extremely difficult to protect from wildfires.

Thinning forests and controlled burns are incredibly resource intensive and costly. Executing a controlled burn is hard, the weather, the crew and the equipment have to cooperate.

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