The ecology of fire and man is a complex relationship. Everyone engaged on the front lines of the current debate about how to deal with wildfire has some of the answers.
History indicates that fire was used by native people for small and large scale landscape management, and wind events were not necessarily unfavorable. Wind-driven fires move so quickly through a landscape that the understory burns while many larger plants are merely singed. When that fire hits something solid, be it a thick grove of trees or a building, its characteristics change. Knowing this, the importance of individual effort and responsibility cannot be overlooked.
Homeowners can “harden” their homes against fire in a number of ways. Cal Fire provides a simple overview at readyforwildfire.org . And UC Berkeley has a fabulous website that illustrates how fire impacts structures and materials at its builders' wildfire mitigation guide website: firecenterbeta.berkeley.edu/bwmg/ .