Science Daily: A wildfire rages across southern California wildlands towards residential communities, endangering residents and firefighters and sending property up in smoke. This is an increasingly common story, occurring several times a summer. To better understand these Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) fires and how best to prevent or fight them, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have issued an in-depth study on fire behavior and defensive actions taken in a community during a such a fire.WUI fires are becoming more prevalent as housing developments push into former wilderness areas. Drought is believed to also be a major contributor to larger wildfires. In addition to southern California, WUI fires also burn across the southern United States and in countries such as Australia, Greece, Italy and Spain. Little research has been conducted on understanding WUI fire behavior and on the effectiveness of current risk mitigation strategies.
The new NIST study examines in detail the events in one representative community during the Oct. 21-22, 2007 “Witch Fire” north of San Diego, Calif. The Witch Fire was the largest of the 2007 California fire storm. The fire burned 197,990 acres (80,124 hectares) and destroyed more than 1,100 homes. Fire damage was estimated at $1.8 billion and suppression costs were $18 million.
…The study revealed that two-thirds of all the homes destroyed were ignited either directly or indirectly by embers. “This is an important finding because current guidelines to make structures more fire resistant offer little guidance on how to make structures more resistant to an ember attack,” fire researcher Alex Maranghides explains. Researchers also learned that one-third of all structures within the fire perimeter were defended by first responders and/or homeowners…..
A house destroyed by the 2007 Witch Fire mentioned in this study, shot by Durova, Wikimedia Commons
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