“In the past 10 years, wild-land firefighting has transformed from a federal government responsibility to a massive, extremely lucrative, private enterprise. The feds provide some of the basic infrastructure, such as maintaining the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho (the Pentagon of forest fires), operating smoke-jumper bases, and hiring ground-based firefighters who do much of the grunt work. But the real bucks are in private contracting.”