Positive thinking, or its shadow, outright denial, makes it easier to live comfortably for a few more moments, but that fire is still out there. You're not dealing with the problem, you're hiding from it, and some problems, like a raging fire, kind of need to be dealt with immediately because eventually it's just going to burn down the whole wall.
I took this to be the world on fire, not some controllable fire on his property. Since he can't do anything about the world burning, he decided to just ignore it and focus on his own happiness.