Community near Heppner, Oregon first in Morrow County to earn Firewise designation

A bolt of lightning struck a tree just outside Bruce Wilcox’s home in Morrow County, Oregon last year, sending shards of wood flying 40 yards away. “It didn’t start a fire,” he said. “It just hit that tree and went to ground. But we were lucky.” Lightning-ignited fires are common in north-central Oregon, and Wilcox lives about 16 miles south of Heppner — home to the nearest fire department. Wilcox is helping his community, known locally as Blake Ranch, become the county’s first to join Firewise USA. He told Oregon Public Broadcasting that the Firewise program could be the key to protecting nearby homes from the next big wildfire.

FIREWISEFirewise is sponsored by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), and the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) manages the program at the state level. Through training and local fire prevention projects, Firewise encourages property owners to take proactive measures to prevent fires from destroying their homes and businesses. Many of Oregon’s small and isolated communities have achieved Firewise designation.

Jessica Prakke with ODF said these sparsely populated communities are among the target areas for the state. “We’re definitely trying to reach those smaller communities that are in the wildland/urban interface, because they can be the most susceptible to wildfire.”

In Blake Ranch, Wilcox contacted ODF after he read about a community in northeast Oregon’s Wallowa County that was participating. Since then, ODF has sent foresters to assess Blake Ranch properties for fire readiness, and some residents have taken a wildfire prevention class. Prakke said ODF doesn’t usually initiate the process of turning communities into Firewise sites, because the agency needs community buy-in to make the program work. Wilcox noted that some local residents are a little skeptical — they suspect the program might require them to remove trees they want to keep. But Wilcox thinks they’ll come around.

Morrow County FIREWISE

The Firewise program has an interactive map on the NFPA website with details about designated sites and their locations across the country, and it’s interesting to compare locations with known fire-danger areas. There’s a cluster of sites, for example, north of Paradise in northern California. One of the sites, Falcons Pointe Drive, is near Upper Bidwell Park in Chico. That community’s participation in the Firewise program began in September of 2022.

FIREWISE map

There are very few sites in Nevada and zero in North Dakota; about half of Colorado’s map is covered with little Firewise icons. While Oregon’s west side is not really known for severe wildfires, that side of the state surely proved the exception over the last few years, and it’s crowded with Firewise sites, while the east side of Oregon, no stranger to major fires, has only a few. Blake Ranch was just added to the list in December, and the numbers grow as people learn about neighborhoods and towns devastated by wildfires.

“The number of conversations I have had since Paradise has skyrocketed,” said Chris Chambers, Forest Division Chief in Ashland, Oregon. Residents and local officials in and around Ashland tend to be a little more fire-savvy than in many areas; they have a history with interface fires. Jefferson Public Radio reported, about a year after wildfire leveled the town of Paradise, that Chambers spoke to a throng of people at a sold-out screening of the documentary Fire In Paradise at a theater in downtown Ashland, just north of the California state line. Although the Camp Fire was more than 200 miles south, Chambers says it alarmed Ashland residents;  it’s a small, woodsy town that, like Paradise, is tucked into forest.

“People have really become concerned,” Chambers said. “I just hope that translates into lasting awareness in the sense that people take responsibility for the condition of their property.”

Maybe insurance will be the turning point

In Boulder, Colorado, Democratic State Rep. Judy Amabile says people are having difficulty finding affordable home insurance. “It seems like across broad areas certain companies have decided we are not going to insure in this area,” she told 9News-TV. “They are having to make a lot of calls and the prices have gone up a lot and they are having difficulty finding anything.”

Amabile plans to introduce legislation to create a “last-resort” insurance plan provided by the state of Colorado. “The plans on that program are going to be really bare-bones and they are going to be very expensive.” She said at least 30 other states now have last-resort homeowners’ insurance programs like this, as more companies are increasing rates or even refusing to insure wildland/interface homeowners at all.

“Across the board, we are seeing 20 to up to 50 percent increases in renewals,” said independent insurance agent Morgan Lloyd.

Homeowners have moved into and built homes in wildland/urban interface areas for decades with little regard for the multiplying fire risk (and evacuation dangers) posed by increased development and neglected fire-safety mitigation. In some areas of the West, homeowners (along with homeowners’ associations, insurance companies, and local governments) are now facing the realities of paying for this development. NBC Los Angeles reported that more and more homeowners in southern California are being dropped by insurance companies because of wildfire risk. They talked with homeowners near Pomona whose insurance companies canceled their policies even though no wildfires have burned near their homes for years. Others’ premiums increased by 800 percent.

Interface photo from Great Basin Coordination Center
Interface photo from Great Basin Coordination Center

The Insurance Journal reported last month that California, Florida, and Texas are the states with the highest number of homes at risk of wildfire, but that other states also are faced with large and increasing risk. Colorado and New Mexico, for example, have fewer homes overall, but project fires can wreak tragedy on a much larger proportion of their populations. New Mexico’s Santa Fe County counts nearly 34,000 properties at risk of wildfire, but the county housed a population of only 155,000 in 2020. This ratio of vulnerable homes to the overall population underscores the magnitude of population displacement assistance, reconstruction resources, and economic recovery expense required after a major wildfire.

With wildfire danger threatening the liquidity and solvency of insurers, the California Department of Insurance has proposed new regulations to incentivize risk reduction on covered properties and neighborhoods. In October, the state Insurance Department issued regulations to recognize and reward wildfire safety and mitigation efforts by homeowners and businesses. The InsuranceNewsNet reported that California’s “Mitigation in rating plans and wildfire risk models” regulation is the first in the nation requiring insurance companies to provide homeowner discounts under the “Safer from Wildfires framework,” which the California Department of Insurance and state emergency preparedness agencies created last year. The regulation requires insurance companies to submit new rate filings incorporating wildfire safety standards. The new rates must recognize the benefit of safety measures such as upgraded roofs and windows, defensible space, and community programs such as  Firewise USA and the Fire Risk Reduction Community designation developed by CAL-FIRE.

::: UPDATE: Highway to the Danger Zone :::
Matt Simon recently wrote an eye-opening piece for WIRED about a study examining numbers of residents moving into and out of fire danger zones (and hurricane regions) across the country. Wildfires in the West have grown increasingly devastating in part because of climate change, but also because more humans are moving deeper into areas that once were intact or contiguous forests. That overlap between development and wildlands, Simon noted, now exposes more people to fires and provides more opportunities to ignite them.

moving to the danger zone

Americans are “flocking to fire,” say the authors of a study published last month in the journal Frontiers in Human Dynamics. Using census data, the researchers found that people are increasingly moving to areas that are more prone to catastrophic wildfires or plagued by extreme heat. And though some affluent Americans are seeking the beauty of forested areas, economic pressures are forcing others there, too: Skyrocketing housing prices and cost of living are pushing people toward more rural places where homes are cheaper.

“As temperatures increase — as things get drier and hotter and prices for housing get more unaffordable — it’s definitely going to push people into these rural areas,” says Kaitlyn Trudeau, a data analyst at the nonprofit Climate Central. “Some people don’t have a choice.”

Increases in the number of people living in wildfire zones come at a huge cost: the 2018 Camp Fire that destroyed Paradise, California, resulted in an estimated $16.5 billion in losses.

Construction costs for fire-resistant home in California

Mitigating destruction in the home ignition zone

Home steps on fire
Relatively fire-resistant homes can ignite during low-intensity wildfires if a path of combustible material, such as fences, stairs, decks, or support beams lead the fire to the home. Image from Texas Forest Service report about fires in 2011.

This is a portion of an article first published at Headwaters Economics in July, 2022. It is used with permission here.


Increasing home loss and growing risks require reevaluating the wildfire crisis as a home-ignition problem and not a wildland fire problem. A home’s building materials, design, and nearby landscaping influence its survival. Together with the location, arrangement, and placement of nearby homes, constructing a wildfire-resistant home is critical in light of rising wildfire risks. This report compares the cost of constructing a home to three different levels of wildfire resistance in California.

California is a leader in the country with a statewide building code and other property-level vegetation requirements addressing wildfire impacts to the built environment. Applicable to all new developments located in State Responsibility Areas (SRAs) and the highest fire severity zones in Local Responsibility Areas (LRAs), California’s Building Code Chapter 7A is intended to reduce the vulnerability of homes to wildfire.

Yet given the magnitude of California’s wildfire risks and increasing home development in wildfire-prone areas, constructing a home beyond Chapter 7A requirements may be needed to ensure greater wildfire resistance. Understanding the comparative costs of wildfire-resistant home construction in California can inform future wildfire policy and decision-making.

This report compares the costs for constructing three different versions of a wildfire-resistant home in California:

  • Baseline home compliant with the minimum requirements of Building Code Chapter 7A;
  • Enhanced home augmenting Chapter 7A requirements with a vertical under-deck enclosure around the perimeter of the deck and a noncombustible zone around the home (0 to 5 feet), including under the deck and extending five feet out from the deck perimeter; and,
  • Optimum home constructed to the most stringent, fire-resistant options (e.g., use of a noncombustible material), or in some cases, a “Code plus” option (an option not currently included in Chapter 7A). Optimum performance levels were selected based on recent research findings and best judgment.

Building materials and assemblies for five primary home components were considered, including:

  • Roof – roof covering, vents, roof edge, and gutters (including gutter covers and drip edge)
  • Under-eave area – eaves, soffit, and vents
  • Exterior wall – siding, windows, doors, trim, and vents
  • Attached deck – horizontal surface area, rails, and under-the-deck footprint
  • Near-home landscaping – the immediate five-foot perimeter around the home and attached deck (including mulch and fencing)

Cost estimates for individual building materials were provided through RSMeans, a national database of construction costs for residential, commercial, and industrial construction. Cost estimates included building material, labor, equipment, and contractor overhead costs such as transportation and storage fees.

In northern and southern California, building an Enhanced wildfire-resistant home increased construction costs by approximately $2,800 over the Baseline home. Constructing a home to Optimum wildfire resistance increased overall costs by $18,200 in northern California and by $27,100 in southern California.

Cost differences, fire resistant home

Although the Optimum home was more expensive to build, it is likely that the increased costs will return greater long-term benefits in energy efficiency and durability. The roof, exterior walls, and near-home landscaping added the largest proportional increases to building costs. Each of the five components is described in more detail below.

Read the entire article at Headwaters Economics.

Researchers evaluate how fences can spread fires and ignite structures

Tests fire hazard fences
Examples of very high hazard fences and mulch: A) parallel privacy fences, B) double
lattice fences, C) wood-plastic composite #1 fence, D) good neighbor fence, E) rubber mulch. (From the NIST research)

Three weeks ago a television station in Dallas, FOX 4, streamed live video as a grass fire spread across a field and reached densely-packed houses, eventually destroying 9 and damaging another 17. There were several reasons why the structures were so vulnerable, including medium-heavy vegetation in the field adjacent to the property lines, very little impact from efforts of the fire department to stop the spread, no air support, and wood fences that connected all of the properties on the rear and sides of the homes.

fences burn fire Texas homes destroyed
Parallel fences burn as grass fire spreads into neighborhood in Balch Springs, Texas, July 25, 2022. Image from video by FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth.

On August 10 the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published results of 187 experiments that examined how fire spread toward a structure is affected by combustible fences and mulch under conditions that may be encountered in a wildland-urban interface (WUI) fire. They looked at mulch only, fence only, fence plus mulch, parallel fences, and long range firebrands. The materials studied were western red cedar, California redwood, pine, vinyl, and wood-plastic composites. Fence styles included privacy, lattice, and good neighbor (board on board).

A small structure was located between zero and up to six feet downwind of the fence or mulch bed as a target for flames and firebrands. A target mulch bed at the base of the structure tested the ability of firebrands produced by the burning fence and mulch bed to ignite spot fires that threatened the structure.

While not many homeowners place store-bought mulch below their fences, it can be common for debris to build up along the base on one or both sides. The amount and flammability can be extremely variable, but the researchers’ use of mulch gave them control over the flammable material which could be consistently duplicated in their experiments.

The study found that firebrands capable of igniting spot fires downwind were generated by nearly all combinations of fence and mulch tested in this study. All wood fences with mulch at the base caused spot fires in the target mulch bed. Spot fires were often ignited within a few minutes of mulch and fence ignition. Shredded hardwood mulch and pine bark mulch burned and emitted firebrands for longer than an hour. Ignition of spot fires was also demonstrated from firebrands transported by the wind over distances as far as 156 feet from the burning item under high wind conditions and over a paved surface.

The research generated a number of recommendations:

  • Avoid parallel fences, to reduce exposure to large flames. Parallel fences can result in highly hazardous fuel accumulation corridors that are difficult to access and maintain. Spacing of 3 feet between fences is not sufficient.
  • Avoid proximity to other combustible fuels, to reduce fire intensity and limit fire spread. This includes fuels above the fence and fuels across parcel boundaries. Avoid mulch at base of fence.
  • Avoid proximity of combustible fences to residence, including neighboring residence, to prevent direct ignition.
  • Fire spread is more likely with wood and wood-plastic composite fences than with fences made of vinyl or noncombustible materials such as stone, brick, or steel.
  • Keep fence and yard clear of debris, to reduce the amount of fuel and potential pathways for fire.
  • Harden structures against firebrands to prevent structure ignition from embers produced by fences or other combustible sources.

The video from the July 25 fire in Texas does not clearly show the fences between the residences, but it is likely that they directly connected to the structures. An example is seen in the photo below of two homes in Superior, Colorado, one of the communities devastated by the Marshall Fire that destroyed 991 structures south of Boulder December 30, 2021.

Fence connecting houses fire spread hazard
File photo of fence connecting houses in Superior, Colorado. July, 2012 Google image.

The images below are from the FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth video shot July 25, 2022.

fences burn fire Texas homes destroyed
Fences burn as grass fire spreads into neighborhood in Balch Springs, Texas, July 25, 2022. Image from video by FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth.
fences burn fire Texas homes destroyed
Fences burn as grass fire spreads into neighborhood in Balch Springs, Texas, July 25, 2022. Image from video by FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth.
fences burn fire Texas homes destroyed
Fences burn as grass fire spreads into neighborhood in Balch Springs, Texas, July 25, 2022. Image from video by FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth.

Most structures that burn in a wildfire are not ignited by direct flame impingement, but by burning embers that are lofted and carried downwind ahead of the fire.  At Wildfire Today we first covered the role of embers in igniting structures in 2010, a concept brought into the public consciousness by Jack Cohen, a researcher at the Missoula Fire Science Lab. To reduce the chances of a home burning in a wildfire, the most bang for the buck is to concentrate on the Home Ignition Zone. The flammable material near the structure needs to be modified, reduced, or eliminated to the point where multiple burning embers landing in the zone will not propagate the fire and spread to the structure.


More information: Six things that need to be done to protect fire-prone communities

Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Gerald.

In a wildfire burning embers transported downwind are what cause most structures to burn

Sheltering from the Creek Fire at the Mammoth Pool Reservoir
Sheltering from burning embers and the Creek Fire at the Mammoth Pool Reservoir Boat Launch, Sept. 5, 2020. Photo by Cameron Colombero, via Mike Ikahihifo.

Most structures that burn in a wildfire are not ignited by direct flame impingement, but by burning embers that are lofted and carried downwind ahead of the fire.  At Wildfire Today we first covered the role of embers in igniting structures in 2010, a concept brought into the public consciousness by Jack Cohen, a researcher at the Missoula Fire Science Lab. To reduce the chances of a home burning in a wildfire, the most bang for the buck is to concentrate on the Home Ignition Zone. The flammable material near the structure needs to be modified, reduced, or eliminated to the point where multiple burning embers landing in the zone will not propagate the fire and spread to the structure.

The video below produced by the New Jersey Forest Fire Service elaborates on this concept. It is queued up to 1:42 where the issue is addressed.

More information is in our articles tagged “Home Ignition Zone.”

Data shows building codes can reduce vulnerability of homes in wildfires

Slave lake burned homes
Burned homes in Slave Lake. May 16, 2011. Alberta, Canada. CTV.

Researchers have found that building codes based on lessons learned during the deadly 1991 Tunnel Fire in the Oakland Hills of California can reduce the vulnerability of homes to wildfires.

In a paper titled Mandatory vs. voluntary adaptation to natural disasters: the case of U.S. Wildfires, authors Patrick W. Baylis and Judson Boomhower describe how they scoured property and wildfire records to identify which homes were constructed under building codes requiring enhanced resistance to wildfires.

Chapter 7A of the California Building Code which went into effect in 2008 requires certain fire resistance measures, including exterior construction materials used for roof coverings, vents, exterior walls, and decks. It applies to new construction of residential and commercial buildings in designated fire hazard severity zones.

The researchers discovered that a 2008 or newer home is about 16 percentage points (40%) less likely to be destroyed than a 1990 home experiencing an identical wildfire exposure. There is strong evidence, they concluded, that these effects are due to state and local building code changes – first after the deadly 1991 Oakland Firestorm, and again with the strengthening of  wildfire codes in 2008. The observed vintage effects are highly nonlinear, appearing immediately for homes built after building code changes. There are no similar effects in areas of California not subject to these codes or in other states that lack wildfire codes.

Their findings are similar to those in a paper published October 4, 2021 in which researchers analyzed the structures that were destroyed and those that survived the Camp Fire that ran through the city of Paradise, California in 2018. They considered at least four primary characteristics of structures:

  • Were they built before or after the adoption in 2008 of Chapter 7A of the California Building Code.
  • Distance to nearest destroyed structure.
  • Number of structures destroyed within 100 meters.
  • Pre-fire overstory tree canopy within 100 meters

They found that the last three criteria were the strongest predictors of survival. Homes more than 18 meters (59 feet) from a destroyed structure and with less than 53 percent pre-fire overstory canopy within 30 to 100 meters (98 to 328 feet) survived at a substantially higher rate than homes in closer proximity to a destroyed structure or in areas with higher pre-fire overstory canopy. Most fire damage to surviving homes appeared to result from radiant heat from nearby burning structures or flame impingement from the ignition of near-home combustible materials. The researchers concluded that building and vegetation modifications are possible that would substantially improve outcomes. Among those include improvements to windows and siding in closest proximity to neighboring structures, treatment of wildland fuels, and eliminating near-home combustibles, especially within 1.5 meters of the structure.

(The video below was shot December 31, 2021, the day after the Marshall Fire destroyed more than 1,000 homes in Boulder County, Colorado. Notice that most of the surviving homes seen in the video had fewer homes in close proximity.)

The authors noted that while Chapter 7a includes requirements not found in many building codes, a few other codes are more complete incorporating multiple construction classes based on anticipated radiant heat, flame, and ember exposure levels. For example Chapter 7A does not consider the interaction between components such as siding, window, and the under-eave area on an exterior wall.

California is embarking on a pilot project in which owners of vulnerable homes in lower income neighborhoods will be given grants up to $40,000 to retrofit the structures, making them more resistant to wildfires.

Home Ignition Zone

This data helps to illustrate that the condition and characteristics of the Home Ignition Zone should be an extremely high priority in preventing structures from burning as a wildfire approaches.

There is an opportunity for much needed improvement in both current building codes and how we live in wildfire prone WUI areas.

Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Gerald.