Is it even really that beautiful in So. Cal though? It's basically a semi-arid desert with an erratic winter monsoon that comes some years and other years like this year and certain other La Nina years, bypasses it to the north and east. Any foliage that grows when it does rain becomes dry and crinkly and prime fuel for the next fire when it doesn't rain for a year or so.
Compared to most of the rest of the West even, especially the Mountain West, and certain other (wetter) places that aren't prone to fire like the Redwoods of far Northern California. Apart from the Sonoran Desert parts of AZ/NM/far west Cali, south/southwestern California is one of the ugliest places in the West if not in the USA. Sure there are hills and there is ocean, but it's essentially flat, cheerless, dry, a massive fire hazard, and geologically and seismically unstable land. And at least with Phoenix you know it's not gonna burn down because it's literally desert and trees don't really grow there so if a haboob/dust tornado comes with 90MPH wind gusts and 110+ degree heat you still aren't gonna get a massive fire because there's just nothing to burn there.
East of the Rockies.... I get it, Texas is pretty ugly, as is most of the Deep South as a whole. It's humid subtropical and cheerless flat brush country. But places like West Virginia, Michigan, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine etc are objectively more beautiful than most of California, especially the populated parts of California.