[bsder]

In addition, very few people have experience with big fires.

It is hard to appreciate the difference between a small localized fire (energy drops off quadratically with distance from fire) and a small line brush fire (energy drops off only linearly with distance from fire) without personal experience.

I can't even conceive of the difference between a small line brush fire and one of the 40-50 ft seasonal conflagrations in Australia or Southern California.