Forest management is both an art and a science, and always seems to be chasing the last big scheme. That said, there really haven't been that many lightning storms recently in the vicinity of most of the big fires: PRACTICALLY EVERY ONE OF THE BIG, DISASTROUS FIRES in California recently has been caused by a human, either deliberately, accidentally, or thoughtlessly. The fact that nobody has been identified in many of the cases doesn't change that; most of these fires simply would not and could not have happened without people starting them.

I hate to quote Smokey the Bear, but the "only you can prevent..." ads had a point even if they were also used to justify fire and forest management methods that mostly made the problem worse. Once a fire starts, having a forest choked with undergrowth and small trees makes it worse, and after a couple of fires a few years apart the whole habitat changes into one dominated more by brush that is expected to burn often and hot. Making it, of course, worse in the future. But if people were more conscious of the problem and did things to avoid both starting fires and building in obviously fire-prone areas (and building in such a way as to minimize the chances of random embers lighting up the house, which of course costs money), it would give the forest and land managers a better chance to do something right with the budgets they have.