You forgot to mention the Enviros and EnviroAgencies who forbid home owners from clearing brush around their homes, and who get the courts to forbid clearing out dead trees from forests to reduce the fuel load.
WTF Pete, why would anyone in their right mind want anything flammable around any building up to and including the outhouse ?
I do know that up here there are regulations on not cutting some healthy trees, White Birch for example, unless one gets approval from someone.
Far as removing dead or downed trees from our forests, we just drive in and help ourselves for heating and the removal is a benefit to the woods. It allows low shrubs to grow that feed the deer for one.
Bugs, another problem for the overgrown forests. Strange bugs from elsewhere in the world get loose and feast on the rotting vegetation and soon migrate to the healthy trees and then the State has to call in crop dusters to spray.
The expression of ---To clear out the dead wood--- to denote a benefit of some sort has been around for hundreds of years.