Ironically much of the problem in California is that California essentially adopted German forest management practices, which don't work in California, because

Ironically much of the problem in California is that California essentially adopted German forest management practices, which don't work in California, because Germany has a very different climate. Germany is much wetter, and so when a tree falls in the forest, in Germany it rots. In much of California, it just sits there until it catches fire. What this means is that in Germany, suppressing every fire is a good strategy, because eventually the energy embedded in the dead wood is consumed by bacteria. In California, it can only be consumed by fire (or potentially mechanical removal). Constant suppression only serves to make the fires much worse when they inevitably do happen.