California had 1200 plus lightning strikes. They were the big fire starter and environmental conditions helped fuel the "perfect storm". Sadly, politics play in with many layers. As Mike mentioned Spotted helper...owl being one. Smokey Bear is likely the worst influence over the last 55 years. As a former USDA Forest Service forester in the FIA division, I saw first hand many forest management plans based on the most recent science altered to appease the public. Bus loads of protesters would flow from the city and overwhelm pubic meetings, picket harvest sites, and some vandalized equipment. The last 3 decades of heartfelt action in treehugger like ways have helped set up many of these not horrific fires.
Luckily, most of the fires have been up-played as being far worse than they are environmentally. There are many areas of truly "scorched earth" that will take a long time to re-establish, but most areas will bounce back quickly. Now remember, quickly is a loose term and what is quick in some forest types is slow in others. "Quickly" in a grassland, within 1-3 years, a birch type, 1-5 years, oak type, 3-10 years, maple type, 1-3 years, ponderosa pine type, 3-15 years. Some pine forests, 50 years could be quick, just depends on the scale you compare and human lifespans do not compare to nature's time lines. These are response ranges, growth as you know could as little a single year, to decades, to centuries to even millennia.
There are books written on these issues...
To reduce fire storms, and truly scorched earth, fire has to be a regular part of the natural cycle has it was before the white man came here. The Australian Aborigines have been repeatedly reminding the mainstream that it is a natural part of nature, and after years of being hushed, Australia burned, a lot of it burned. Had the small fires been allowed to burn, much of the fuel load would have been reduced. With reduced loads, smaller fires.
In the NE USA, fall and spring have fire seasons. The Smokey attitude is to prevent (now the word suppress is being used at times) forest fires, something that has been recorded in the soil for the last 10,000 years. If conditions are right, primary and secondary fuels will burn cleanly and not intense enough to dry and kindle tertiary and quad fuels. The primary and secondary fuels are the smaller thickness classes, that are usually blanketed across the forest floor. With these burned and transformed to soil benefiting ash, the larger fuels are often in isolated pockets with no blanket to link them. When the larger fuel classes are ignited, that is when damages can happen. Green ladders (trees with live branches to the ground) rapidly dry, foliage can ignite and fire chases up the tree into the crown. If conditions are right, crown fires can spread and you see these fires on the TV. They are serious. I could go on but think I answered your questions...