You will not persuade hardcore preservationists in California by listing out the economic/quality of life benefits of controlled burns. They (and I am generalizing) have a deep passion for returning nature to its natural state.
The key to changing preservationists minds is not to say "there are many benefits to controlled burns (for humans)" but rather, "the state we are creating in forests without burns is not natural."
...just because it is interesting.
"Natural state" is a term with a debatable definition. Is it:
* how it was when the Native Americans lived on it and did whatever they did
* how it was when there are no humans around at all
And these aren't even necessarily the only definitions, or a binary choice (it could be a spectrum/tunable).
When the Bering Strait ice bridge formed and the descendants of native peoples migrated down through the American continent, California was not a dry desert. It was probably covered by lush forests and wetlands with a much lower sea level than today so there's literally no way to return it to that "natural state"
With the Kelp highway hypothesis [1], humans were here for most of that transition so really there's a whole list of "natural states" to pick from (that we largely can't return to)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coastal_migration_(Americas)#K...
To convince them to take action you have to validate their self-imposed guilt with images of reverting to noble savages clapping hands and playing pan-flutes around a fire while the animals sway in time to the music.
There was a time I would have said these people need education, now I'll settle for using their guilt to herd them in the correct direction.
When two conflicting woke ideas meet, which one wins?
Here it sounds like white guilt beats environmental virtue signaling.
Which is what's happening.
Its natural state includes devastating wildfires every so often when lightning touches off dry undergrowth that hasn't been cleared away for years.
The first time the controlled burn goes out of control the initiative will be back to square one.
"Native Americans" arrived here about 30,000 years ago. For all the time prior to that forests were actively managed by controlled burns conducted by nature.
The idea that they somehow had some advanced knowledge that Europeans lacked has no scientific basis, they simply didn't have the modern technology to stop a fire started by lightning.
Or as much fixed and immobile infrastructure that would be endangered by fire-- if there is nothing you care about nearby, why not set a fire to aid in hunting or to clear out plants you can't eat in favor of ones you can?
Just because they intentionally set fires that doesn't itself make it environmentally good-- it's an extraordinarily racist view that the indigenous people weren't capable of environmental destruction just because they were less effective at it than industrial civilizations. The noble savage protector of the land is a racist fantasy of people raised on a diet of Disney movies, not reality.
This is, by definition, not a controlled burn.
#1 - To the best of our knowledge, the forests of the region were actively managed via fire for thousands of years. This changed a few hundred years ago, and the result is the unprecedented fires we have been experiencing. The government is reacting by greatly increasing funding for prescribed burns which, to the best of our knowledge, is the best solution at this time.
#2 - The state is bound by federal treaties with the sovereign nations that reside within its borders. The bounds of these treaties are hotly contested. The sovereign nations believe that the treaties grant them the right to the lifestyle they historically had. The federal government wants to curtail activities they believe, if unchecked, might cause lasting negative effects. One of the rights these sovereign nations had restricted were controlled burns, which they call cultural burns. These rights are being slowly returned now that the state and feds view controlled burns in a more positive light.
There is a 3rd indirect element to this article, which is that it is trying to address an audience that has been affected by years of the Smokey the Bear 'all fire is bad' mentality.
You should reread the article. I'm pretty sure you brought along the baggage you are complaining about.