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The hills all around us burnt as well as 30-40 houses all due to this Woolsey fire (Simi Valley to Malibu). This year we had a very hot summer and the previous year there was lots of rain and created a "superbloom", things grew like crazy.

Lots of that brush was dry and perfect for burning. I'm not sure how realistic it would have been to do a controlled burn of most of the open spaces. The risk of a controlled burn turning into a real fire seems very high. Even clearing the brush by hand probably increases the chance of somebody accidentally sparking a fire.

The county or whoever does seem to do a good job of maintaining the roads and trails so that the fire fighters can get back there quickly.

I go for walks all the time in these areas that burnt and have been concerned that this was bound to happen. Its just so frickin dry here for most of the year.

There most certainly are some aspects of this issue that have to do with political priorities (7 billion for a train to no where - no super tanker airplanes California owns). A lot of the problem seems like we live in an area that is very prone to this happening.

Building codes probably need to be strengthen to make the houses more fire resistant. Those canter-levered houses on the sides of very steep hills in Malibu need to be forbidden regardless of how rich the person is. I have heard many of those types of homes were destroyed as its easy for the fire to get up underneath them.

There seems to be also a bit of a fatalist streak to it all - at some point its going to be your turn in the barrel

The risk of a controlled burn turning into a real fire seems very high. Even clearing the brush by hand probably increases the chance of somebody accidentally sparking a fire.

There's very little risk when the fires are started in low mixing weather. The problem is that CARB disallows burning in low mixing weather because someone might cough from the smoke. The regulations are absolutely insane, only allowihng controlled burning (natural and prescribed) when it is unsafe i.e. windy. By then it is much too late. Furthermore CalFire wasted money putting out minor fires when it was still safe, instead of starting more controlled fires in high risk areas. They are completely incompetent. CARB has blood on their hands. Likewise Butte county which took already bad CARB regulations and made them more onerous, only allowing 6,000 acres to be burned in controlled fires (out of more than a million). That was woefully inadequate.

You are correct that the super El NIno created a huge amount of fuel. That was the source of the problem and the only solution was fire, either sooner or later. California chose later. They chose badly.