Can Your Home Survive a Wildfire?
Whether a home survives a wildfire is not random, nor is it a function of luck, most homes that exhibited attributes promoted by the FireSmart program -- including keeping combustible vegetation away from the house, uncluttered yards and low-flammability roofs and surfaces -- survive fires. It seems clear that the survival of homes was a function of resistance to ignition and not a random event or a matter of luck, Beyond doubt, risk mitigation (FireSmart) guidelines demonstrated their effectiveness in mitigating risk under the harshest of wildfire conditions. Most homes caught on fire as the result of embers from the forest fire landing on their property. "Based on site visits, no instances were observed where home ignition could confidently be attributed to direct contact by flames of the burning forest, and there were very few observations where home ignition was likely due only to radiant heat from the forest. Other studies have shown that embers generated by burning vege...
