What uptick? A 2016 study by the Royal Society has shown that 'Global burned area have dropped by about 25 percent over the previous 18 years'.

'Even in California, which for years has wrestled with fire devastation, a study in the International Journal of Wildland Fire found that the number of wildfires burning more than 300 acres per year has been tailing off since a peak in 1980.'

Stefan H. Doerr, Cristina Santín. Global trends in wildfire and its impacts: perceptions versus realities in a changing world. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2016; 371 (1696): 20150345