The problem is the houses.
In lots of pictures from LA, there are green trees right beside burned out houses. The video in this NYT article is a great example: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/01/15/us/los-angeles-wildf...
One of the biggest problems are vents in the eves. Typically these vents have a single screen with a coarse mesh. Embers from fires easily pass through these vents, land on a surface, and start a fire.
Replacing the one coarse mesh with two or more layers of fine mesh significantly reduces the odds of an ember getting into the house.
This is a trivial improvement that dramatically increases survivability.
The real problem is the FIRE. The houses could be made fire-resistant, but making houses to be fire-resistant is going to be more expensive than managing the forests to reduce wildfires and storing more water. I don't believe that a tiny screen is going to make this huge difference you think it is. These fires are HOT and don't just catch houses on fire with little embers. They are hot enough to set wood and plastic on fire from a pretty good distance away. Green trees don't easily burn because of their high water content. Trees have evolved to survive fires as well.