but on the other hand it is nature's way of rejuvenating the soil.
It clears out rotting dead stuff covering the ground and choking the roots, making possible for better air passage to the roots, which is very good. That is why we aerate our lawns to clear the thatch of dead grass.
And the ash acts as fertilizer for future growth. Burned out areas always recover with lush growth later.

The conditions of the pacific nw taiga forests are not normal. Under extreme heat and drought conditions over huge areas the fire burns under such high heat that it kills everything basically bleaching the soil and killing the seeds that would normally survive. It kills older seed trees as well that usually survive a natural burn not that there are many old growth trees left anyway.

Fires burn hotter due to more ladder fuels. Pine forests burn on the ground and leave much of the crown intact when following their natural cycle.

Forest management only recently began using this science to better manage when and where to aggressively fight fires. Pine forests on the eastern slopes of the Cascades are so overgrown, that fire now sterilizes the soil. It may take many decades for them to recover.

Trump's admonition to "rake the woods" has a small grain of truth. A massive effort to clear undergrowth would simulate many of fire's benefits without filling western airsheds with smoke. It would be costly, but would preserve huge carbon sinks represented by the standing timber.

Last year was exceptional in that we managed to get through without too much problem, but I'm nervous about this year - temperatures have been warm, we've had no snow to speak of in Seattle (we may get some next week), and while it's been fairly rainy, the warm temperatures have kept the snowpack down in the mountains. I can remember the Olympics burning a couple of years ago - old growth forest with the fires actually burning at the roots under the ground - killing a lot of trees in the process. The air quality was so bad in Seattle that many people were wearing medical masks, and you had ashfall coming down like snow flurries.

In assuming we won’t all be wiped out in a nuclear holocaust before next summer.