The American West has seen the number of structures lost in wildfires more than triple in recent decades. But new research shows that home hardening measures can significantly increase a home’s chances of survivability during a wildfire.
A team of researchers recently looked at some of the most destructive blazes to find out how effective measures like clearing brush near homes and installing metal roofs or non-combustible siding are at reducing that risk.
In the incidents analyzed, only 20% of the homes withstood the flames, according to co-author Michael Gollner, who runs the University of California’s Fire Research Lab. But home hardening measures took that to 25%, and removing flammable plants and other materials from close to the structure took it all the way to 48%.
“You go from having most of the homes destroyed to half of them surviving,” he said of the findings. “It's a completely different thing.”
But to have that effect, he cautioned, it can’t just be a handful of properties.
“If you do it for one house, it's ineffective,” he said. “But if everybody does it, then everyone starts to retain those benefits.”
Measures like wildfire building codes and grant programs to help pay for hardening measures can help, according to Gollner.
“We should not be building new communities ready to burn,” he added. “That's not intelligible in this day and age.”
The Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety suggests a number of wildfire mitigation measures that homeowners can take.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Boise State Public Radio, Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Northern Colorado, KANW in New Mexico, Colorado Public Radio and KJZZ in Arizona as well as NPR, with support from affiliate newsrooms across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Eric and Wendy Schmidt.
