'Tree clears' to stop forest fires from spreading

President Trump has tweeted that 'tree clears' will stop wildfires from spreading. Let's assume he means clearing an area around the perimeter of a fire and not more. Then what it seems like he is wanting is to put loggers to work to create a fuel-free barrier where fire won't be able to cross to spread further.

This sounds somewhat reasonable, but the question is whether employing loggers as a response to wildfire would create an incentive for unemployed loggers or others looking to stimulate the logging industry to set fires in order to trigger the commissioning of fire-perimeter logging jobs.

Another potential problem is that carving forests into isolated segments by preventive logging (tree clears) has an effect similar to digging a ditch around a wetland. Moisture from within the forest will seep out into the cleared areas and cause the forests to dry out faster.

What's really needed is to restore forests to such a density that the widespread canopy shades the ground and forces any evaporation to occur as transpiration. In this way, transpired moisture is retained under the canopy where it is shaded. This would be difficult in California where so much land has been cleared for agriculture as well as development, but what is the alternative, allowing everything burn and/or dry up in isolation because of tree-clearing that prevents fire from spreading?