John Fleck makes an excellent point about the professionalism of firefighters contrasted with that of TV journalists:
I have a great frustration with traditional television news coverage of wildfires, because it generally leaves the impression of a chaotic, uncontrolled and unpredictable situation. Sometimes it is that way. But more often, the fire crews have a pretty clear idea of terrain, fuel load and weather. They know where the fire is now, and where it’s likely to go in the next 24 hours. They have a strategy for fighting the fire, which generally involves cutting a line behind it, flanking it with lines, and picking a safe distance in front of it to cut a line. It’s hard work, but most of the time it’s a fairly orderly process. The importance is to distinguish that orderly process from the times that the fire gets unruly rather than just treating the whole event as unruly chaos.