You keep saying this but I have yet to see one affected landowner blame this on their inability to burn based on air quality.
The Butte County restrictions are really prompted by agricultural burning and absolutely necessary.
There are even explicit exemptions for burning to manage fire danger.
That ordinance requires clearing 100 feet around your home: https://www.buttecounty.net/Portals/26/Education/ButteFireFlood.pdf which can be done by burning or chipping. Obviously the fire hazard ordinances were utterly irrelevant in Paradise. There are lots of pictures online showing trees within 10 feet of each other. That didn't matter at all since the trees were relatively fireproof. In stark contrast to that, most houses in Paradise were not ember proof.
Thus the 100 foot exemption from AQ regulations made no difference, utterly useless. What would have made a difference and saved lives is a blanket exmption to the AQ regulations last spring, before it was too late.
....but I have yet to see one affected landowner blame this on their inability to burn based on air quality.
Article about how more burning is needed: https://www.kqed.org/science/1927354/controlled-burns-can-help-solve-californias-fire-problem-so-why-arent-there-more-of-them where they mention that it's hard to get a permit. That article was written in July, obviously too late in the season to prevent tragedy this year.
Governor Brown signed an executive order last spring that would have allowed more burning. https://www.gov.ca.gov/2018/05/10/governor-brown-issues-executive-order-to-protect-communities-from-wildfire-climate-impacts/ "“Devastating forest fires are a profound challenge to California,” said Governor Brown. “I intend to mobilize the resources of the state to protect our forests and ensure they absorb carbon to the maximum degree.”" Doesn't sound like a ringing endorsement of prescribed burning.
Also last spring there was a report https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3798 that soft-peddled the problem. They put it this way: The VMP treated 17,500 acres with prescribed burns in 2017, somewhat more than the average of approximately 13,000 acres treated per year since 1999. This represents a decrease from about 30,000 acres treated per year from 1982 through 1998. This decrease is due to several factors, including (1) an increase in the amount of planning and documentation required for prescribed burns due to stricter air quality regulations,...
It's still too early for a scientific report on this year's fires. I didn't see notices for prescribed burning on https://ssl.arb.ca.gov/pfirs/index.php in Butte county from last April and May other than some trivial burns.