Perhaps reinvent the CCC Camp. My dad and his brother joined and spent a memorable year in Montana.
Great resource: zoom and move; click on layers
https://www.fireweatheravalanche.org/fire/
You have got that right. The problem is that in the thirty or so years since forests were actually managed here in Washington State the top management has all been replaced with people whose environmentalism indoctrination in school was all anti-forest management.
In Spokane, smoke is dreadful. I can barely see a block away, and light coming through the windows is a sickly yellow. . Air quality is listed as HAZARDOUS. Here’s a link to WA/ID air quality reports, charts, etc
https://www.airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=airnow.local_city&cityid=260
YES, what you said. The spotted owl was a ruse...the Barn Owl was killing off the Spotted owl...since that time lack of preventive fire practices in forests, caused by environmentalists is why we have these HUGE fires.
The large timber corporations that hold huge privately owned forests don’t want the competition from smaller lumber companies using public forests for their logs.
The corps want the National Forests in the West to burn. The National Forests comply with their wishes by allowing forests to get choked with underbrush and deadfall (fuel) and allowing insects (bark beetle) to further weaken trees to drought and disease.