While the residents of southern California await the wind event that will start Tuesday night bringing winds gusting in some areas at 75 to 85 mph along with single-digit humidity, someone might wonder, can wildfire conflagrations that occur in southern California during extreme conditions be stopped?

That topic has been discussed for many decades but it can be instructive to know the thoughts of scientists who study wildland fire as a profession.

One of the pioneers in the scientific study of fire behavior was Clive M. Countryman, a U.S. Forest Service researcher who four years after the disastrous fires of 1970 addressed the issue in a 16-page paper, “Can Southern California Wildland Conflagrations Be Stopped?”. Mr. Countryman reported that he was not able to develop “a radically new concept of suppression”, deciding instead that the best prospect is to reduce fuel energy output.

Thirty years later Marty Alexander, a Canadian wildfire researcher, took a close look at Mr. Countryman’s findings, came to a similar conclusion, and summarized the issue in a 2004 paper.