More firefighters and more firefighting equipment are, of course, needed.
Brown called for more funding for firefighting and said the fundamental obligation of government is public safety.
Last year, firefighting accounted for more than half its budget, up from 16% in 1995.
He loved firefighting, and was volunteer for more than 20 years at the Roosevelt, N.Y., Fire Department, where he met his wife, also a volunteer firefighter.
Fire and weather experts have warned that climate change and drought are likely to provide abundant fuel for more and fiercer "superfires" across the West in the years ahead, putting more strain on firefighting resources even as people build houses deeper into the backcountry.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs, which provides a vast sweep of services for more than 1.7 million American Indians and Alaska Natives, has kept essential programs, like federal police and firefighting services, running.
The army, firefighting airplanes and cloud-seeding have so far failed to extinguish fires that have raged for more than two months, shrouding much of western Indonesia and Malaysia and Singapore with smoke.
Thus, it said, spending more on firefighting planes could save money over all.
Mr. McMellon had applied for a firefighting job more than a year before the shooting death of Mr. Diallo, a West African immigrant who was struck by 19 of 41 police bullets fired at him in the vestibule of his Bronx apartment building in February 1999.
Stan Davis, the mayor of Salmon, Idaho, said he was relieved to see more money for firefighting.
