A year or two ago I read a classic Sci Fi novel set in 1940s Oakland called Earth Abides. The novel featured a global viral pandemic, and a giant pan-Californian fire. There's also this comment linking to a prior fire in 1904: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24268508

California has always been burning, so we need a better reason to believe This Time Is Different than that new migrants have no living memory of when it Wasn't Different.