Screens in siphons: fire prevention or particulate catcher?

[drbabe]

We figured out that our sudden power loss was tied to crud clogging the screens at the top of the siphon tubes in the saddle tanks. On this '74 V-20, clearly there's been some accumulation of particulates in the tanks. One of the threads on this site had one of you simply removing the screen and trusting to the big OMC filter to keep the crap out of the motor (Fitz, Maco, Tsubaki,et al ). I mentioned this to my pals and they said "No, that's a flash screen, to keep a fire from moving into your gas tanks; you only need them once!" Another guy said, yeah, that's true of the vents, but not of the siphon tubes. So, what, in your opinions, is it? Can I remove the screens, or does anyone have a good way of cleaning the tanks out?