As you noted, these fires are in & below the Santa Monica & San Gabriel Mountain ranges. Yes, they are fire ecosystems, but they're NOT grassland ecosystems. Vegetative growth in these fire ecosystems need to be controlled w. prescribed burns and/or grazers & browsers in the spring & fall before any Santa Ana winds blow.

First Nations in these fire ecosystems routinely used prescribed burns to reduce fine fuel loads and for a number of other reasons.

Drought can also be mitigated by healthy soils full of carbon that allow greater infiltration & retention due to better soil structure. Though these healthy soils also spur plant growth. So it's even more imperative to reduce plant growth since this plant growth becomes fine fuels that increase the intensity and speed of spread of any fires that occur.

And no, the soils weren't or aren't dried out due to an overly simplistic understanding of climate change based on an atmospheric carbon thermostat. Soils are dried out due to poor land, forest and water management including draining of 95% of California's wetlands as well as a lot of really poor agricultural practices. 

Watch the attached video