I argue here that three key land management activities (pre-fire logging and prescribed burning, fire suppression, and postfire salvage logging) are, in their present form, incompatible with the maintenance of the severely burned forest conditions needed by the most fire-dependent species. Pre-fire logging alters the forest structure such that conditions are no longer suitable when a fire returns to the forest. The severity, timing, and frequency of prescribed burning is generally incompatible with maintaining the ecological integrity of mixed-conifer forest systems. Firefighting is designed to stop the very thing most western mixed-conifer forests need—severe fire. Postfire salvage logging carries overwhelmingly negative ecological effects on the most fire-dependent bird species—the same can be said of no other forest management activity. Each of these threats carries notable weaknesses in their management justifications, leaving the reader to wonder why we conduct some of the land management activities the way we do.