[fr_freak]

Why spend billions to develop a Directed Energy Weapon to start a grass fire when for less than $2 you can just have someone with a Bic lighter do it?

I don't subscribe to the "they did it with DEW" theory, myself, but your reasoning is faulty. First, the DEWs do exist, and second, one doesn't develop things like this just to do simple things. One develops these things for much bigger purposes, like warfare, but then once one has successfully built it, then it can be used for whatever one wants. Just because it was used in a particular way, doesn't mean it was built just for that one purpose.

[MeganC]

Sorry, these fires were started by a combination of negligence, poor planning, wokeness, and the unintended consequences of rendering farmland into grassland.

A space weapon was not needed here.

Just plain old human arrogance and stupidity.