It's not about scaring people away, it's about taking the forest out of the equations. Altough the fires can easily reach vilages they alway start in the middle of the woods.
Like, there's this nice piece of land but the city/governament won't allow for the construction of some new urbanization or the planting of commercially viable species of trees because there's a natural and healthy forest in it, but woops looks like that forest burnt down last summer so I guess now there's room for those projects and the governament can at least make some money with the licenses.
Sometimes it may also be easier and certainly much cheaper, to burn it down and clean the land after instead of taking down the patches of forest the old fashioned way, with big saws and security measures.
A big problem we have here is the replacement of our autochthonous trees with species that are more commercially viable, usually the eucaplyptus, a species that grows fast and is therefor much used and profitable in the paper industry. On the down side, they drain the soil around them and literally burn like exploding torches, spreading the flames very easily.
If you take take a trip to Portugal and travel betwen cities it doesn't matter if you take the big highways or the older roads, at some point you'll look to the side and see a big patch of eucalyptus planted amist oaks or pines or olive trees, etc.
I can speak from personal experience on some of it.
I live about a dozen kms outside the city and there's a pine forest just a couple hundred meters away from my house. It already had some terrains next to it with eucalyptus, and truth be told I'm quite fond and accustomed to their smell and feel from growing up here.
About 10-15 years ago, during the typical summer, there was a fire in the forest. Luckily, it was manageable since there werent' many fires in the region and the proper means were avaliable. It was quite a scare but despite coming near some houses, including mine, it didn't reach them and no one was hurt. The winter of that same year, a big patch of the burnt area was cleaned up and replanted. Where there used to be pine trees now stood eucalyptus, and that wasn't a surprise to anyone, it's quite normal actually.
This isn't a recent problem, it's similar to the USA's gun control debate, it keeps happening and the governament never seems to do much about it because of lobbies and then there's a new tragedy and it's really starting to escalate.
I do have to say, luckily it wasn't the whole forest so there are still pine trees around here and a while ago they stopped planting new eucalyptus in said patch and switched back to pines, which are now growing.
There are still many eucalyptus in the area but you know, it's something.
If you want to see the difference betwen the tree's effects on the situation you should check this story, which happend earlier this summer, where a house located in the middle of hills ravaged by the huge fires survived because it was surrounded by local species like oaks, which burn at a much slower and manageable rate.
https://www.jn.pt/nacional/interior/quinta-rodeada-de-carvalhos-e-castanheiros-escapou-ao-fogo-8583333.html
The link is in portuguese but you can easily check the photos and there's a facebook post written in english at the bottom.
EDIT: Just leaving this edit to correct something I totally forgot, but was just now reminded by reading another article on this topic.
Pine trees are also not native to Portugal. They were brought here for comercial reasons. They are more versatile in use for the general population living near them than the eucalyptus but still present dangerous risks during fires.
Like I said above, I always lived near a pine forest so I always wrongly associate pines with something natural in this country. But as much as I like them they are also part of the problem and need to be adressed.