LOL - You obviously don’t live in California are even drove up the Central Valley.
Look at Google map of California. The Central Valley is almost all farmland. None of the fires are occurring in the Central Valley.
In Northern California while there are population centers most is just forest. There is nothing to gain by burning the forest down.
What if isn’t about people but protected species? Could anything on an endangered list have been wiped out by the fires?
There are many reasons to burn the forest down. Fighting fire is very big business with it’s own well entrenched union structure and lobbying efforts. Follow the money; PG&E is negligent in tree/power line management. They saved millions by not trimming trees properly. All of the bare wires were supposed to be replaced decades ago and weren’t.
I could go on but I don’t feel like keyboarding much more.