Forest Rangers have nothing to do with forest management. Foresters are the group that manage forests. They tell loggers what to do.
Every forest prescription is site specific. If we are talking about So Cal then mostly there will be Jeffrey pine stands, and a little higher and wetter mixed conifer stands with white fir, incense cedar, maybe some Douglas fir.
National Forests in the western US, and So Cal in particular suffer from neglect, 110 years of fire suppression and little logging in the last 30 years. Therefore they are way over stocked, meaning too many stems per acre. That is the main reason we have megafires, insect outbreaks like pine beetles and other problems.
The normal way to restore health to these forest types is to thin them and selectively harvest them to get back to a historic density level. In Jeffrey pine, that means 50-75 stems per acre. NF lands typically have 250 to as high as 600 or more. After thinning/harvesting then they can have the understory safely burned by prescribed fire. Most stands are too dense for fire alone.
Take a good look at Yosemite NP. It has been protected for 150 years. Fires have ravaged the park. There are giant burn scars of standing dead trees that go on mile after mile. It is a disaster area caused by "protection."
Fire is a natural part of forest ecosystems especially away from the coast where some species are fire adapted and even fire dependent. Lewis and Clark talked about all the smoke. Lightning used to cause frequent smaller low intensity fires each summer. No we have giant infrequent fires.
Old growth trees are measured in hundreds of years. The normal rotation age for commercial pine forests used to be around 100 years. Now we have the techology to use smaller logs so the rotation age is more like 60-75 years.
