There is as yet no direct evidence on this, but it has been suggested that the wildfires (if not also the sandstorms) are a revenge attack by Iran for the nuking of Bandar Abbas. Yes, that was a nuke, apparently meant to derail the ongoing talks between Iran and the United States, which appear to be going quite well.

Iran makes an incredible number of threats of retaliation and only very rarely does anything, but every once in a while they drop a hint like, "And we got shit you ain't even know about, too." I suspect everyone reading this is fully aware by this time that not all wildfires are wild.

I would also note here that the inflammatory remarks by Hegseth may be mere appeasement and distraction for the Christian Zionist crowd. Frankly, Hegseth may have been put forward as unwitting mouthpiece for such statements because he's one of them.