Six Explanations, One Gap

Prescribed fire lags its targets despite the largest fuels appropriations in the program's history — and every explanation has a constituency arguing by confirmation. This episode runs the debate through an Analysis of Competing Hypotheses: six explanations at full strength, then the evidence that separates rather than decorates. Record inputs against flat outputs demotes funding to necessary-not-binding. Unused burn windows disconfirm climate as the sole constraint. What survives is a self-reinforcing conjunction — workforce, consequence asymmetry, institutional incentives — and a central finding: the binding constraint is not the same constraint everywhere, which is why every national single-lever fix has failed and the next one will too. Closes with a unit-level diagnostic and a portfolio-shaped legislative ask.Adapted from the Cogplexiti white paper. Full eleven-row matrix and adversarial re-rating: cogplexiti.com