For most of the recent Los Angeles area fires there was never any possibility of conducting controlled burns. The terrain is too steep and there were too many structures nearby. A controlled burn could have turned uncontrolled in moments (which has happened before).

Brush clearing can help to an extent. But that's tremendously labor intensive on steep hillsides where heavy equipment can't be used. Taken too far it can also destabilize the soil and cause mudslides during the rainy season.

More realistic solutions are going to include tightening up the building code to make structures more fire resistant, prohibiting building at all in certain risky areas, and provisioning more water supplies so that the hydrants don't run dry.

You may be thinking of the US Forest Service’s suspension of prescribed burns.

https://cepr.net/publications/us-forest-service-decision-to-...

However, state and local agencies undertake prescribed burns regularly. To be fair, clarity (read: honesty) from political figures on this topic (and others) is at an all time low.

Much of the damage was in areas where a controlled burn would have been impossible due to geography. And the kind of vegetation in the burn area isn’t suited to controlled burns anyway:

https://thedispatch.com/newsletter/techne/why-shrubland-make...

No, it's not a simple task at all.

Firstly, burns are a short lived control. You can burn but when it rains, the vegetation regrows.

Secondly, regular burns often promote the growth of even more flammable vegetation.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/brv.13041

And then there's the health impact on neighbouring communities.

https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2020/213/6/exceedances-nation...

And then there's the ever diminishing opportunity to conduct burns, due mostly to climate change.

Los Angeles had a ton of rain in Feb-Mar 2024 which resulted in massive fuel growth. That rain stopped in a hurry, plunging the region straight into drought.

That fuel subsequently cured over summer and became available to fire. Once it ignited, it was driven by extreme winds and there was no stopping it.

Not only was there no opportunity to conduct burns in that area, but it would've been dangerous to do so at any time due to steep terrain and risk to property.

California is a bit more nuanced to that. There's a whole chunk of Federal land owned by BLM that is poorly managed by the feds. And then there's a fuck-ton of private land as well that makes up forests and brush. And then finally there's state owned land.

Of course california hurts itself with its own environmental regs for burns, but there's alot of legal complexity to pull it off across the various land ownerships.

That is not true. Annual number of prescribed burn acres had been stable since the 70s with a sharp increase in the last two-three years.

The main issues are sprawl and aging, above the ground electrical infra

This is a fairly ignorant take on the situation and unironically it’s the same comment I’ve been hearing news anchors constantly make.