Fire related grid shutdowns are usually hyperlocal, meaning the few who need to charge during that time can just run a town over. (keep in mind that EVs can be charged just less than once a week for average use)
And I believe all high voltage transmission lines are above ground.
The difference is that California historically has fire prone conditions. It’s not like the rest of the country is doing something different and California has done something inherently wrong. It’s that California did what the rest of the country was doing, but without conditions to support it.
Most countries don’t have regular residential streets with power lines up in the air.
It is significantly cheaper than burying lines from an initial cost point of view, so as long as the cost of preventive maintenance is low enough, it is a viable option. Particularly if the cost to fix lines is also low.
As an added bonus, it then also becomes easier to hang other lines (telephone, cable, fiber) on the same poles. This more difficult to do with buried lines, even if the lines are in conduit.
I’d prefer my electrical lines to be buried too, but I at least understand why they aren’t.