It's OK when the government does it. They know what they're doing.
Like in New Mexico in 2000 when the forest service decided to do a controlled burn in the Los Alamos area.
In the middle of a drought.
And in high *expletive deleted*ing wind conditions.
About a dozen of my coworkers lost property, more than a few lost pretty much everything, including pets, when the "controlled" burn became the uncontrolled, 48,000 acre Cerro Grande fire.
The controlled burns have multiple aspects. As in Mike's example, you have the "oh well" thing when the gov does it, but then you only have to look at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge occupation, which centered on the gov sending private individuals to jail for a controlled burn, which as I recall, mostly went right.
Then on the other side, NOT doing controlled burns, you end up with California. We've had year long fire seasons for several years not only because of the drought, but because the econazis kept suing to stop controlled burns. Combustible vegetation got so out of hand that natural fires (or even arson) that might have been contained early, become spectacular blazes that can't be stopped.
Whether controlled burns or trapping pests or what have you, common sense seems to be all too often lacking in the implementation. The point is that private individuals are generally punished for their carelessness while gov generally is not punished.