--when I moved to the Black Hills in '83 two thousand people were supported by logging--it's now a fraction of that, of course as a letter from the Sierra Club or the other "conservation" (treehugger) -groups takes a tract out of consideration for three years-indefinitely, for practical purposes.
Along the same lines, for nearly two weeks now Show Low, Arizona has been in danger--in that hime two dozers could have had a firebreak a few hundred feet wide around the entire town--wonder why not?
I grew up in Southern California. There were numerous 100-yard firebreaks scraped into the hillsides below the San Gabriel Mountains which did help prevent fire spreading. All bets were off during a Santa Ana wind, though. Embers flew for miles.
I haven't been back for some years; I'll bet the firebreaks are now overgrown.