>Fires have health and economic impacts on people who aren't in immediate danger of being burned to death and the only way to minimize these impacts to reduce the number of fires.

Reducing the number of fires isn't really a viable strategy; the flammable material just accumulates more and more. California has always had wildfires, they're just a part of the ecosystem. A lot has been written lately about how the strategy of trying to suppress every fire the last century is a big part of why we have so many giant, out-of-control wildfires now.