Interesting thoughts. First forest are not forest in the sense of the natural order outside federal lands. They are tree farms which are in reality long term agriculture. The crops ( trees ) are on average based upon 40 year rotations from planting to harvest. Depending on location and the land owner they are thinned at 10 to 15 years to reduce density. This repeats itself again at the 25 year range but this usually dependent on terrain and species along with market value.

Along the coast while the density of fuel is greater than a old growth forest the ability of a fire to utilize it is rather limited even in dry years. This is not the case the farther inland you get and once you get into the forest like those in the Wenatchee it is an issue.

When I started working in the woods in 1970 for forestry thy still utilized slash burning which in reality was a controlled forest fire. What you learned quickly was humidity was everything as the fire simply would stall once it hit timber. For you hunters think about it this way, your out in the open or in 10 to 20 ft tall trees and then you walk into timber. The difference in humidity is just amazing. With trees not being large enough to create a canopy until at least 20 years old the loss of water in the ground is quite substantial. From 20 to 40 years at harvest the trees do much better at maintaining the water in the soil.

So I am not sure I can go with all you put forth. This I do know from working in the woods for 38 years. When you have 50% of the tree farm average age under 20 years old the loss of water to streams is substantial not from the trees themselves but rather to evaporation due to the loss of the tree canopy.