escape fire

1. A fire created in an area of vegetation so as to create a path clear of fuel to avoid an oncoming wildfire. A lighter might seem like the last thing you'd need in the middle of a grasslands wildfire, but it saved my life when I used it to start an escape fire. OK, the escape fire I just started should wipe out any brush that the oncoming fire could burn through. No, an escape fire would not have helped at that point. The wildfire had gotten so big that we had to jump in the ocean in a last-ditch attempt to save ourselves.

2. By extension, any nonstandard, counterintuitive, or improvised solution to a problem that is too large or complex to be dealt with by traditional means. The country's welfare debt was so insurmountable that the government began looking at radical escape fires to manage the situation. Oh, it's bad—the situation has gotten to the point where company leaders are considering potential escape fires. I think an escape fire is the only thing that will save our country from climate change at this point.