Bush’s Healthy Forests initiative should help thin the kind of fuel that allowed the Southern California fires to burn with such ferocity. Here’s an interesting editorial on how thinning worked in Arizona. Meanwhile, a Blue Ribbon Commission met in San Bernardino yesterday to mull over ways to get more money to public agencies. What would help is if California followed the lead of Oregon, Washington and Nevada and stopped their policy of overlooking wildfire services contractors. When officials fail to use all closest available resources it makes wildfire response smaller, slower and more expensive than it could be.