In recent years, the United States Forest Service has been trying to rectify the previous practice through the use of prescribed or “controlled” burns.
I read an article last year about this, I think also in the Times, and it pointed out that this was mostly a California thing; other states continued with proscribed burns, while California stopped for aesthetic reasons.
The article was spurred as a fact-check piece after the president tweeted that last year's fires were because of California's mismanagement of its forests, in spite of federal agencies trying to continue the controlled burns.
It came right around the time someone on HN posted a very cool interactive map that used satellite data to show all of the fires burning across the country, and sure enough — when you hovered over the fires in other states the pop-up text indicated they were controlled burns, but the California fires were all enormous out-of-control conflagrations.
There is more bureaucracy around things like air quality regulations, but in general it's not an "aesthetic" issue causing these problems.
Many of the issues are around "interface" fires where cities butt up against forested areas. Doing a controlled burn of some remote wilderness is fine, but doesn't accomplish much as far as human safety. This is exacerbated by things like the massive drought CA suffered, and other climate change related problems. For example, millions of CA tress which would otherwise be green and healthy have died or are afflicted by disease as a result of climate change, which makes them into tinder that fuels these "conflagrations".
If you do a controlled burn nearby a heavily-populated area, you always run the risk of things going out of control and having unintended consequences. The issue as far as PG&E goes is that their POWER LINES and other equipment have not been properly maintained, which is 100% their responsibility.
They are obligated to clear areas around their lines and make sure everything is operating safely. The Paradise fire wasn't caused by State mismanagement, it was caused by sparking PG&E lines and transformers catching immediately adjacent growth on fire. That's not a State of even a Federal management issue or responsibility.
They are a for-profit corporation though, so other than fines and penalties for their negligence, they have no incentive to do better. They pay out massive salaries, bonuses, and dividends (bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2019/04/16/new-pge-ceo-salary-double-geisha-williams.html), yet their solution to "safety" here is to just shut everything off and act like it's a problem caused by others.
There are many interrelated aspects at play, but insinuating that the State is somehow just a bunch of misguided hippies not following common sense is just silly.
I read an article last year about this, I think also in the Times, and it pointed out that this was mostly a California thing; other states continued with proscribed burns, while California stopped for aesthetic reasons.
The article was spurred as a fact-check piece after the president tweeted that last year's fires were because of California's mismanagement of its forests, in spite of federal agencies trying to continue the controlled burns.
It came right around the time someone on HN posted a very cool interactive map that used satellite data to show all of the fires burning across the country, and sure enough — when you hovered over the fires in other states the pop-up text indicated they were controlled burns, but the California fires were all enormous out-of-control conflagrations.