Through axle (thru-axle) - typical/minimum number of turns of active tread engagement
Sounds weird and wrong. Usually you indeed have a lot more thread engagement, I think 5-6 turns or more on the road/cross forks I have my hands on all the time. If there are a lot of threads present on the fork and nothing filling them up, I agree it sounds unsafe.

One easy possibility is that the bike ended up with an axle that isn't a correct match for its fork, and someone either didn't notice or care. To be really right it must be the axle intended to go with the fork in question, and they can require some work to track down, particularly if it's an OEM fork as opposed to a named aftermarket one.