Comment by palata

The best way to prevent forest fires is to cut all the trees. No forest means no forest fire, right?

The problem (as always) is that it is complicated.

We are living in a mass extinction right now (orders of magnitudes faster than the one of the dinosaurs), mostly because of habitat loss. It has nothing to do with the climate (of course the climate is making it worse, but we screwed the biodiversity before that).

Is thinning the trees and clearing the underbrush good for the biodiversity? Probably not. Is it good to reduce flammability? Probably yes.

But I don't think it is fair to say that those who care about biodiversity are obviously wrong because preserving the biodiversity make forest more flammable. If you think like this, the solution is to go live in a bunker. Many people find that attractive (just look at how many dream about living in a bunker on mars), but I don't.