I've managed to end up out on some brush and field fires to take pictures for our newspapers and the few times where the farmer was out and had equipment to take care of it, the fire was always put out faster. The problem is always going to be distance. Where is the fire station. How long does it take for someone to report. How long does it take a volunteer fire department (in our case) to respond, suit up and arrive? How long does it take to organize lines when they get there.

A farmer with a harrow cutting off a fire's fuel supply getting there within seconds of the fire starting and making a few trips around it is always going to have a better chance at it.

Here, of course, it used to be more common for the farmer to burn a field to prepare it for next year. The law may have changed, since I don't see as many of those as I used to. Driving up and down I-5 you could run into quite a few of the fires, and the smoke when the wind shifted. I was never really that concerned about them, but I believe people get quite upset about even the controlled burns.