And prescribed burns have been used in agriculture to improve the landfor probably most of the last 20,000 years, so his is no doubt a VERY old tradition.

Glad for this guy that it saved, or helped save, his property. Certainly, given the infernos that may have required something of a miracle also.

After going to a workshop about cultural burning, one firefighter totally changed his approach.

That firefighter's probably a city boy. None of this is new information to American farmers, and rural people have always known how useful clearing is, for instance, for insect control.

When we left urban Los Angeles and bought our 4 rural acres I let the pasture, which was very pretty, grow up about 25 feet from the house. After a few days of grasshoppers and other insects flying in all directions wherever we walked outside, and following us in because we couldn't scamper faster than them, we bush-hogged it to a more functional distance again. You learn.

This isn't a rural/urban issue -- he's a firefighter who was well-trained in prescribed burns. It's not that he learned that prescribed burns are useful, it's that he learned a technique for a prescribed burn that works better than the way he had first learned.

Reminds me of how a young horticulturalist with a fairly new Ph.D. hired at a brand new arboretum being developed near us was amazed at how beneficial in many ways very deep plowing (big machinery) of a hillside above the new building was. They'd tried to avoid ravaging and damaging the land, but it had become necessary to keep water from sluicing down into the work area.

But it turned out great. In this case, great disturbance of the natural systems, contrary to the current beliefs of his culture, worked just fine. The land was still healthy, and new plants from around the planet typically grew nicely. And we weren't slogging around in the mud anymore.

Like the fireman and this expansion of his understanding. Normal. But note, neither happened in environments if mindless rejection of other ways. That horticulturist travels the world in his work, and the fireman attended a workshop, likely was instructed and paid to attend, to learn more from others.