I don’t know about Californian fire fighters, but the ones that I know here in germany are fairly well interested in all kinds of preventative measures. They’d all prefer to sit on their couch and be paid for not having a fire than donning that flame-proof suit and literally putting their lives at risk. That certainly doesn’t mean that all money is perfectly allocated - they all love their toys and might go procure stuff that’s not truly needed if budget has no limit, but all in all they’re fairly well incentivized towards prevention.