That is a very wide area.
Might depend on how they are constructed. A light can be seen for miles against a near black background at night.
Do you really think -- with all the attention in Southern California on wildfires in this drought -- that people are going to send burning candles up in the air in balloons down there?
Do you know how much trouble they would get into if they were found out?
-PJ
I’ve seen the candle balloons getting launched by the dozen, last year, Grand Haven beach. There is simply no way for those to cause a flap of any kind. They look good-sized close up, but turn into a dim, and quickly nearly invisible dot, rising higher and higher and out of sight, until the flame dies, at which time they cease to be luminous at all and just sink to the ground.
The military may have been using large flares for some kind of training or readiness, and either deny knowledge of it, or the spokesperson asked for comment might not have any idea that it went on anyway.
The fact that these kinds of unidentified nocturnal lights (to use the term coined by J. Allen Hynek) have been reported since long before the US military used flares for anything, or had aircraft, or bases out west, or indeed before the US (leave alone the US miltary) existed, shouldn’t dissuade everyone from the idea of a mundane explanation. /s