First use a five-year drought to turn everything to tinder. Next toss in any random spark in order to fill the sky to the west of us with megatons of smoke.
Repeat as necessary so there are so many fires burning across the state that they can’t possibly fight them all as aggressively as they would like. This leaves fires like this one that are out in the middle of nowhere in the mountains to just be allowed to burn for the most part while the bulk of the firefighters and planes are trying to save tens of thousands of homes elsewhere.
Sort of a brute force way to get spectacular sunsets, but it seems to be working well!
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 