The fire TFR situation in the West is out of hand. The red outlined airspace are TFRs, all apparently for fires. I doubt the Forest Service has that many aircraft in the area, much less have so many at any one fire to require a TFR to "protect" them.

Map from RunwayFinder.com - click the map for current TFRs in that area.

This is airspace abuse. There are very few aircraft in that part of the country already, much less any significant hazard of midair for the handful of aircraft fighting fires. How bout this idea: If the Forest Service assigns some minimum number of aircraft to a single fire, say 10 aircraft, then they create a TFR. And close it as soon as the number on duty go below 10. Even with that number of aircraft, there couldn't be more than 2-3 on scene at any one time, with the rest in transit and tanking up.

If really necessary, then write an FAR against flying within a mile or two of the origin of a forest fire. If you did that, you could skip a TFR entirely. The tiny number of aircraft around most fires is far less of a collision hazard than traffic at most non-towered airports on a nice Saturday morning.

Posted 20:32 GMT by Dennis Collins