Wall Street Journal: One Way to Fight Wildfires: Burn Your Land Ahead of Time

By: Eric Niiler

As crews battle California’s largest wildfire of the year—a 70,800-acre blaze that has forced evacuations and closed a highway—many homeowners are preparing for such emergencies by burning their own land ahead of time.

Last December, Paige Lettington set her property in the foothills of California’s Sierra Nevada mountains ablaze to protect it from the raging wildfires that have consumed 14.8 million acres in California since 2015.