The problem is still mismanagement. Those fires that were fought so ardently in the past, lack of logging, and other greenie-weenie crap has reduced once-great forests to dregs.
We're no longer allowed to log like we used to. So too many trees fight for too little water, then get weak and are prone to beetle infestation. They die, and become tinder for the next little fire to blow up into a big fire.
There was a lot of reaction in the SW after the Rodeo-Chediski fire caused unprecedented damage on National Forest land, but had little impact on adjacent White-Mountain Apache forest land. The Apaches had allowed logging to thin the forest, and it suffered little damage in comparison.
Entire forests of dead/dying trees to become the next match-head to ignite.
Yep.