> Like, if a fire is burning in a neighborhood, every sighting is valuable. You don’t always need to wait for a comprehensive picture before being able to do an

> Like, if a fire is burning in a neighborhood, every sighting is valuable. You don’t always need to wait for a comprehensive picture before being able to do anything. That assumes there are a meaningful number of reliable reports. If I regularly am told there is a fire only to have authorities come back a week later to adjust reports down I wouldn't trust them. If they over estimated the number of fires based on the last 6-12 months of fire data, with little recent data to go on otherwise, I would ignore the reports. > Maybe the solution is to make these numbers available only to gatekeep these numbers. This seems more reasonable at least, though I don't see much use in the data still when its released so early that its based primarily on recent historic trends and few survey responses. > There are bajillions of them. Those are all anecdotal in this case. If said sources were applicable and reliable the official data would consider those and have more accurate reporting. My point was that said reports depend on survey results, and when they report early results so early that few responses are in yet them there is no official data to contradict the early reporting.