“Sadly, I see people rebuilding the same way.” One thing people should consider doing is building with straw bales. Below is an article written in 2007 in response to similar California fires, with many interesting and useful comments.
No building with straw bales might seem crazy, but have you ever tried to burn a big telephone book or a stack of newspapers. They will burn around the edges, but the lack of oxygen in the center causes the fire to self extinguish after a while. There are many articles at Google on this type of construction. Once the bales are stacked and pinned, they should be covered with stucco or a layer of cement. The interior could also be stuccoed or covered with fire code drywall. The roofs should be tile or ceramic, or metal could be used if the roof has a layer of strawbale included between wide rafters as I have seen built. Under the eaves should be made with nonflamable material to prevent fire entry. Entry ways and window areas are usually framed with plywood or OSB, but a layer of tile board on top would probably reduce vulnerability to fire. Windows should be double layer as one comment mentioned interior curtains set on fire from the heat of grass burning nearby. Also metal framed, not wood. Obviously all the landscaping things you mention would need to be modified—stone patios not decks, gravel mulch instead of woodchip, minimal planting near the house. I have seen fences (landscaping walls and benches) built with straw bales that are then stuccoed. I even saw on such bench that had survived a major fire intact with disaster all around. Hope you can pass this information along to others as they consider rebuilding. The link is really useful.
Building with brick or cinderblocs in some of these areas subjects them to earthquake danger. Straw bale buildings are quite resistant to EQ problems. I also saw a strawbale home a year after Katrina that had survived quite nicely while neighboring buildings still had blue roofs.
Generally speaking, you are correct about a bale burning. I demonstrated to an employee that wet hay burns. I soaked a bale with water and let it sit 2 days. After two days, I cut it open and you could not keep a hand in it due to the heat generated (This is how most barn/hay fires occur, wet hay decomposing.). I also lit one bale and another I put some fuel on and lit. Neither would sustain flame for long.
The night of the Nuns Fire, I had a stack of hay. when embers lit on it and it began burning, in single digit humidity, with driving winds, with air super heated by the surrounding fires and the weather, not only did that pile sustain fire, it sustained flame, and nothing could put it out. They burned for more than a day. A week later they rekindled what was left.
People think metal is the ticket. The metal structures here became super heated enough that the framing under the metal caught. Even framing covered with fire resistant hardi-board and then metal burned. Everything in the metal pump house burned. Everything in my “fireproof” all metal shipping container burned. We found very little, half notebook size sheets of metal and then only a few of those, from the metal roof of the barn. Unless you are really studying this stuff or have seen these fires burn in person, it is hard to comprehend what is taken by one of these fires.
Do not kid yourself that a bale building will resist fire. I have seen these fires time and again and given the right circumstance they will burn too and burn well.
The reason a phone book doesn't burn is that the layers of paper form an insulator and the center stays cold. That said, I have burned phone books, but only 1/3 at a time, and I have to "roast" the phone book for at least an hour over a bed of coals supported by some logs or a grate. Heating the whole phone book to 500 degrees will completely burn it, but it will leave behind a lot of ash.