The loss of two firefighters in a crash in Arizona on Saturday, following the deaths of two other firefighters last week raised the toll of firefighter deaths in wildfires to nine since February.

Wildfire-fighting organizations have now announced that the toll is too high, and they will be abandoning all further attempt to battle blazes across the United States. The loss of life is too great, balanced against what are largely efforts directed at saving property and uninhabited wilderness, not lives.

Okay, that last part isn't true. But what business do we have risking human lives just to save houses and woodlands? Okay, maybe they prevented some people from being killed, but how do you prove that? What's the point of it?