Darth_CiD posted...
I know i would rather burn to death than have a bit of salt water corrosion on my property, it's clearly the better option of the two.
On a moment-to-moment basis, yes, it'd be preferable to just use a bunch of seawater to put out a fire and save someone's life, accepting the longer-term consequences, but it's rarely a moment-to-moment decision. The logistics of getting water to a firefighting team have to be developed well in advance of when they're needed. Even if you did set up seawater reservoirs to tap into during a fire (including establishing a network of seawater hydrants separate from the freshwater infrastructure that already exists), maintaining that infrastructure would be a nightmare because of what salt water does to pipes, and the hoses and pumps firefighters use would need to be cleaned and replaced much more often. On a finite budget, that means fewer fires can be fought because so many extra resources would be going toward the extra maintenance.
The only real option for using seawater to fight fires is to use water bombers, which is exactly what they're currently doing in LA. Even then, though, that's not an option for saving somebody from a fire (if your house is burning with you inside it, dropping three tons of water on top of it is just going to kill you faster), and it's considered a last resort because literally salting the earth is a bad thing. That usually means the land will be barren for a year or two afterwards (especially in an area that doesn't get a lot of rain), and salt corrodes concrete such that any new or existing foundations in the affected area are going to be at risk of losing structural integrity. It's still better to not be able to build or grow anything in the current fire zone for a couple years than to let the fire spread to and destroy other areas, but again, it's a last resort.