One of the things you have to remember whenever hearing about California wildfires is that the state of California generally refuses Federal assistance in the form of USPS/USFS/BLM wildfire fighting assets (tankers, crews, smokejumpers, logistical help, etc.) until the situation is way out of hand.
Don’t forget that misguided forest management policies have a major part in these conflagrations. No lumber harvesting anywhere, anytime leads to monstrous deadwood buildups.
The vast majority of large fires currently active in California actually started on Federal land, thus the initial response was by Federal agencies, using whatever Federal assets the agency chose to respond. The state became involved either because of mutual aid agreements, or as the fires migrated to non-Federal land.
http://www.nifc.gov/nicc/sitreprt.pdf