this is amazingly wrong. Fires occurred in California since 2017 of voracious nature. It made world headlines.
It does look like the 10 year average has come up a bit, as 2010s report lists the 10 year average at ~6.8 million acres and our current 10 year average is ~7.2 million.
Full report (PDF warning), page 13 for what I'm looking at: https://www.nifc.gov/sites/default/files/NICC/2-Predictive%2...
Link to more reports for other years: https://www.nifc.gov/nicc/predictive-services/intelligence
What you describe is similar to "the dog decided to turn left at the corner, so things are better now"
The sheer number of people involved in fire response, and the deadly and immediate nature of their work, has natural links to military style leadership and organizational behavior.
No way, at all.. is "more controlled burning recently" the driving factor in the new stats.
The budgets and the size of the destruction, are hard for a person to think of.. in California
Real devastation was caused by "catastrophic" fires, burning at higher temperatures than previously recorded. Extensive forest die-off preceded these events in California. This is not over in one or two rainy years, since recent shrub growth is subject to die-off in a dry year and will burn.