This Video Explains How Fighting Wildfires Makes Them Worse

In a perfect world, we would only bring up wildfires to try and describe passionate people. But since the world is very much imperfect, it’s all too common to hear about — and in some cases see — the infernos that rage across the landscape. Thanks to that, firefighting is just something that’s supposed to be done, unless we want to lose homes and forests. But this video argues, and thoroughly, why that’s the wrong approach.

Ironically, the problem stems from the forests themselves. They’ve become so dense and offer so much fuel that wildfires can tear through them more efficiently than ever. The solution, absurd as it may sound, is to preemptively start fires. Controlled burning or selectively cutting down trees means that if a fire breaks out, it has a much lower chance of going out of control — and with it, doing less damage. Granted that’s a solution that takes money from Congress — and plenty of it — but something is better than nothing.