The Botanic Garden in Australia's Blue Mountains has just finished installing one of these around the perimeter. All going well will it will protect it against the next big fire. Added bonus of watering the trees when required.

This is obviously total bullshit, given the amount of water and maintenance required would lead to a staggering cost. But it wouldn't even work. If just a bit of water could stop a wildfire, they wouldn't be an issue. The water would simply evaporate under the intense heat. Another big issue is embers flying over on the wind, landing on top of something flammable (like roofs of most North American style buildings). Once the fire clears the obstacle, it's done for.

Usually with forest management fire breaks are incorporated. A clearing large enough so a fire on one side doesn't easily cross over. These are often combined with access roads for fire trucks. However when a wildfire is large enough, the heat and embers are easily able to cross over. Especially when the wind is involved. Once a fire gets to that scale, it's very hard to fight and some sprinklers in the ground ain't going to do shit.

I agree with the overall sentiment in the post, but it's also undeniable that we need to invest on disaster preparedness, given that extreme weather events are more and more common now.

but... but... Think of all the data centers you could power with all that water!

(/s)

Somewhere, some day, a billionaire will see this and tell someone to make this happen around his private doomsday bunker/spa retreat to weather out the totally normal summer temperatures to come. Just until the Mars colony is up and running, of course.

I love how they snuck "commercial" into the post, too. Like, obviously it has to be commercialized, can't fathom having any poor peoples' homes saved, after all.

Technical limitations? Bah! That's a typical poor people argument, they always lack vision!