We can’t treat fire as an occasional emergency the fire department will take care of. Managing fire risk is something every town and home owner need to spend time on year round.
And/or insurance companies.
Look for people asking for regulations to prevent this any day now.
I actually sort of empathize with a point of view that you pay your insurance every year, aren't doing anything especially unreasonable, and have to adhere to a somewhat arbitrary new standard at possibly very significant cost and time.
To be clear, I get the other side too in wildfire-prone areas.
Either you adhere to standard and make the effort to comply, or you eat the cost of a higher premium because your property has a higher risk.
It's going to cost you either way.
Or you can decide to try to go without insurance and you pay neither the costs of the premium nor adhering to the standard.
I’m responsible for clearing brush in that hillside, so that it’s n-hundred feet from structures. It’s checked in May, or thereabouts.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Fire
The world is changing
B&B Complex Fires in Oregon in 2003 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%26B_Complex_fires
Yellowstone Fires in 1988 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_fires_of_1988
And I'm sure I could find many other older examples.