Facing criticism over its practice of monitoring some fires rather than quickly snuffing them out, the U.S. Forest Service has told its firefighters to halt the policy this year to better prioritize resources and help prevent small blazes from growing into uncontrollable conflagrations. The change came days after politicians in California and the West, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, publicly challenged the “let it burn” approach after the Tamarack fire ignited last month, as The Times detailed in a story Sunday.

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