This is not "failure of government," it is competing (even reasonably good-faith) interests, which are today in unanticipated opposition as a result of (wait for it) climate change.
No climate change? No problem.
Since that's not going anywhere, something has to give. A renegotiation of the distribution of previously externalized costs between insurers, government, and society is inevitable.
For decades, fire management policy (state and federal) in California has been to suppress all fires. Naturally, fuel built up and the resulting fires became harder to control, until they were no longer able to control them.