Land of Dead Trees: Why Won't California Protect Its Forests?

[I wrote this a week and a half before the Napa-Sonoma wildfires. That's not national forest, but I don't know why we think the same thing won't be happening to the rest of California's forests in the near future.]

The excellent and sad map below is from a great article about where the dead trees are in the Sierras, and the associated fire risk. Assuming that dead tree counting has been consistent for the past 4 years, this article also has data showing that the trees lasted the first 3-4 years of the drought, and all the winter of 2016-17 did was erode the soil around dead trees, and grow grass for fire fuel, and fuel fires it did. Pretty soon the southern Sierras will look like the Grapevine. Even for people who aren't outdoorsy, did you notice the air quality this summer? A lot of the country was affected by smoke from western fires. Much wetter New Zealand outright forbids fires in its national parks. What's wrong with us in California that we aren't serious about preserving our remaining forests?