I think I need to make myself clear, because it is apparent that I am being misunderstood.
I am not saying we need to be making interior attacks on abandoned, fully involved buildings with flames self venting from the roof. That is a suicide mission and I know it.
But, there are certain cases where buildings that would have been salvageable are total losses and where room and contents fires type turn into fully involved structure fires because of a lack of interior attack and other poor tactics (ladder pipe through the roof as a primary attack).
Not to mention there is also a public perception problem. If someone's house is on fire, they call the fire department expecting the fire to be put out with a minimum of damage to life and property. When that doesn't happen, public (i.e. taxpayer) perception turns unfavorable and could lead to dangerous situations (homeowners trying to put fires out themselves because they don't think the fire department will). Not to mention the media and activist s***storm that would occur if a child was to die while the fire department "stood outside and did nothing".
Now again, if the building is obviously too far gone, or a collapse risk, or unstable etc...then yes, protect exposures and conduct defensive ops. But, a room and contents or appliance fire should not have the end result of the entire building being demolished because of defensive operations, barring special circumstances.
