Forest management in the western U.S. is a dichotomy. Federal management follows a passive, custodial strategy favoring multiple forest values, and federal efforts at more active management generally face environmental appeals. Industrial managers focus more narrowly and traditionally on commercial wood production, but their actions are subject to political regulation that varies by state, peaking in California. Regardless, natural stands are converted increasingly to plantations, either through cataclysmic wildfire or harvest. Once plantations are established, management strategies might be influenced favorably by incentives. One favorable incentive concerns “ecosystem services” and a service rising in prominence concerns carbon accumulation and retention to counter current inputs of greenhouse gases. To this end, California has taken a national lead in developing a "climate action registry” numbering more than 500 participants, all seeking to demonstrate their efforts at reducing atmospheric inputs of greenhouse gases. Forestry attention has centered on standing biomass, with less thought given to resistance to wildfire and even less to carbon stored in the forest floor, fine and coarse roots, and soil. The general presumption is that “less management is better,” but findings from decades of plantation research in California show that greater intensities can reduce wildfire risk and boost carbon stocks stored in roots and mineral soil. Results demonstrate that passive plantation management in the droughty West likely leads to fuel buildup and a strong rise in the risk of carbon loss to catastrophic fire.