Creative destruction

It is often said that one of the facets of capitalism is "creative destruction": businesses and even entire industries are destroyed to give raise to new products and new ways of making them. Yet rarely do we think of this on the scale of a forest fire, or an earthquake, when all we see around us is massive destruction, with the "creation" part coming much later. Something like the current crisis. This begs the question: is such an orgy of destruction really necessary? Yes, the forest will grow again and new, stronger bridges will replace those that crumbled when the earth shook, but wouldn't it be better if we managed to harvest the timber before it burned, and used the cement to repair the bridges, instead of rebuilding them?