How America Courted Increasingly Destructive Wildfires − and What That Means for Protecting Homes Today

Long ago, Southern California’s scrub-forest ecosystems would periodically burn, limiting fuel for future fires. But aggressive fire suppression and inattention to urban overgrowth have left excessive, easy-to-ignite vegetation in many areas. It’s unclear, however, whether prescribed burning could have prevented this catastrophe.

This is primarily a people problem. People have built more homes and cities in fire-prone areas and done so with little regard for wildfire resilience. And the greenhouse gases released by decades of burning fossil fuels to run power plants, industries and vehicles have caused global temperatures to rise, compounding the threat.

Climate Change and Wildfires
The relationship between climate and wildfire is fairly simple: Higher temperatures lead to more fire. Higher temperatures increase moisture evaporation, drying out plants and soil and making them more likely to burn. When hot, dry winds are blowing, a spark in an already dry area can quickly blow up into dangerous wildfire.

Given the rise in global temperatures that the world has already experienced, much of the western U.S. is actually in a fire deficit because of the practice of suppressing most fires. That means that, based on historical data, we should expect far more fire than we’re actually seeing.

Fortunately, there are things everyone can do to break this cycle.

What Fire Managers Can Do
First, everyone can accept that firefighters can’t and shouldn’t put out every low-risk wildfire.

Remote fires that pose little threat to communities and property can breathe life into ecosystems. Frequent, natural fires can also help avoid catastrophic fires that occur when too much underbrush has built up for fuel. And they create fuel breaks on the landscape that could halt the advance of future flames.

Fire managers have advanced mapping technology that can help them decide when and where forests can burn safely. Thoughtful prescribed burning – meaning low-intensity fires intentionally set by professionals – can offer many of the same benefits as the flames that historically burned in forests and grasslands.

The Forest Service is aiming to ramp up its prescribed burning on more acres in more areas across the country. However, the agency struggles to train adequate staff and pay for the projects, and environmental reviews sometimes cause yearslong delays. Other groups offer beacons of hope. Indigenous groups across the country, for example, are returning fire to the landscape.

Adapting Homes to Fire Risk
More than one-third of U.S. homes are in what’s known as the wildland-urban interface – the zone where houses and other structures intermingle with flammable vegetation. This zone now includes many urban areas where wildfire risk was not considered when their cities were developed.

The biggest risk to homes comes from burning embers blowing on the wind and landing in weak spots that can set a house ablaze. Those embers can ride high winds for multiple miles to nestle in dry leaves or pine needles clogging a gutter, a wood-shingle roof, or shrubs, trees and other flammable vegetation close to a structure.

Some of these vulnerabilities are easy to fix. Cleaning a home’s gutters or trimming back too-close vegetation requires little effort and tools already around the house.

Grant programs exist to help harden homes against wildfire. But enormous investment is needed to get the work done at the scale the fire risk requires. For example, nearly 1 million U.S. homes in wildfire-prone areas have highly combustible wooden roofs. Retrofitting those roofs will cost an estimated US$6 billion, but that investment could save lives and property and reduce wildfire management costs in the future.

Homeowners can look to resources such as Firewise USA to learn about the “home ignition zone.” It describes the types of vegetation and other flammable objects that become high risks at different distances from a structure and steps to make properties more fireresilient.

For example, homes should not have flammable plants, firewood, dried leaves or needles, or anything burnable, on or under decks and porches within 5 feet (1.5 meters) of the house. Between 5 and 30 feet (9 meters), grasses should be mowed short, and the tree canopy should be at least 10 feet (3 meters) from the structure.

The key takeaway is that homeowners must begin to view their homes as potential fuel for a wildfire.

Rebuilding Right
A possible outcome of California’s devastating fires is that states and communities could enact forward-looking wildfire resilience policies. These can include developing zoning rules and regulations that require developers to build with fire-resistant materials and designs. Or they might prohibit building in areas where the risk is too high.

California’s move to fast-track reconstruction, if it isn’t planned with wildfire safety requirements, will just set up the state for more fire disasters. The International Wildland-Urban Interface Code, which provides guidance for safeguarding homes and communities from wildfire, has been adopted in jurisdictions in at least 24 states. California is not one of them.

Living in a World With Wildfire
Prevention and suppression will always be critical pieces of wildfire strategy. Though promising new firefighting technologies are being developed, adapting to a fiery future means everyone has a role.

Educate yourself on how wildfire is managed in your area. Understand and address risks to your home and community. Help your neighbors. Advocate for better wildfire planning, policy and resources.

Living in a world where more wildfire is inevitable requires that everyone see themselves as part of solving the problem. It means we must accept that some fire is natural and essential and that some places we love might be too dangerous to protect.

Justin Angle is Professor of Marketing, University of Montana. This article is published courtesy of The Conversation.This is an updated version of an article originally published Aug. 22, 2023.