Has anyone considered how California’s wildfires have been affected by CA’s history with and current legal status of the water rights doctrine of “prior appropriation” (as opposed to the traditional “riparian rights”)?

Under “prior appropriation,” the first in line to the water is first in right… meaning, if you are at the head of the river, or further up stream, you have superior right to the water from the source than those further downriver. In times of drought, those at the end of the river suffer the shortage.

Riparian rights, however, means that everyone in on the river equally share… in other words, the person at the beginning of the river can’t take all the water to get their non-drought amount of water at the expense of those downriver.

Any water law/law and economics nerds want to lend some insight?