When you point fingers at the Park Service, Forest Service or the Corps of Engineers (as entities...idiots can exist in any organization) keep in mind that they exist to carry out the laws that Congress has passed (and the non-laws that the presidents have promulgated by Executive Order). If some legislator manages to push through a law that requires that some percentage of forests would be burned each year, then that would happen. If (as is actually the case) the law says that one part of the Forest Service's mission is to support the timber industry, then that's what they'll do. Their web site includes this as part of their overall statement of purpose: "Congress established the Forest Service in 1905 to provide quality water and timber for the Nation's benefit. Over the years, the public has expanded the list of what they want from national forests and grasslands. Congress responded by directing the Forest Service to manage national forests for additional multiple uses and benefits and for the sustained yield of renewable resources such as water, forage, wildlife, wood, and recreation." The Corps straightened out the rivers of the midwest, because their mission was to make them navigable, ruining thousands of miles of wildlife habitat at the same time. Now it is reversing that process, because they have been given a new task.

I hate to think that people who build in the woods would be subject to having their houses burn if there was a fire, but I'm reminded of the situation that occurred several years ago along the Oregon coast. Many people were building homes at the edge of cliffs, and it is the nature of cliffs to erode. The state and the feds were spending a fortune to "stabilize" what nature meant to fall. I think it was the State of Oregon that finally passed a "build at your own risk" law.