Why not? If we spend 200 million a year on clearing but save a billion in insurance claims plus the trauma of relocating people during fires and having them lose all their possessions, it seems like a smart move. ps. We spent 12 days at a local hotel along with hundreds of other people during a forest fire two years ago. We were fed and housed on the gov's dime, so I cant imagine what the final bill was but they spent at LEAST $2000 on us alone. Id estimate there were 500 of us in that hotel alone so that's a million dollars. And that was only one of several hotels. Add on the cost of firefighting and the loss of property and it gets VERY costly in a hurry. To say nothing about how traumatizing it was for my three neighbors who lost their houses and livestock to the fire.