Jack Cohen

Most wildfires are ignited by humans, but that's nothing new. Wildland fires have mostly been started by humans in North America for thousands of years. So today, they're often caused by power lines, railroads, burning debris, and fireworks. Regardless of the cause, however, wildfires are inevitable.

Wildfires have always been a part of the landscape. But what's changed over particularly the last 100 years is our increasing attempt to control wildfires. Over this period, we have successfully suppressed 95% to 98% of wildfires, keeping the area burned small. While this may seem like a good thing, it actually just postpones fires to inevitably burn during more severe conditions.

When we suppress fires, wildland vegetation continues to grow and regenerate, and this results in fuel conditions that can produce more intense wildfires during strong winds and dry conditions. That's called the wildfire paradox. That is, the more we try to stop fires, the worse they become when they inevitably occur. So we need to find ways of increasing wildland fires instead of limiting them.

We need to distinguish. Fires in wild lands are a separate issue from fires in urban communities. The urban and suburban wildfire problem is how fires ignite and spread within residential areas. Most of the disastrous community fire destruction occurs after the wildfire has ceased near the community. While we can't stop extreme wildfires, we can significantly reduce community wildfire risk.

The key to preventing disastrous fire destruction in high-density residential areas is by addressing how community ignition and fire spread occurs during the extreme wildfire conditions.

Not at all. The media often portrays wildfires as huge, unstoppable flaming tsunamis or walls of flame. But that's not how the fires actually spread in urban areas. In fact, much of the fire spread in residential areas is from burning embers carried by the wind.

Initially, these embers may travel long distances from a wildfire, accumulating on homes to ignite them or directly by igniting flammable materials around the homes. When the wind is strong, burning embers can land across a wide area and simultaneously ignite numerous homes. But the disastrous community fire spread continues from burning structures, not from the extreme wildfire.

More firefighting resources can't prevent disastrous community destruction during the extreme wildfire conditions. Wildfire suppression and community fire protection, that's with aircraft and fire engines, becomes ineffective during extreme fire conditions.

Even in Southern California, with hundreds of fire engines and firefighters, they are overwhelmed by hundreds of small fires simultaneously igniting and leading to hundreds of burning homes scattered across a community.

In high density residential communities, it takes a minimum of three fire engines and 15 firefighters during average fire conditions to prevent one house fire from spreading to its neighbors. So when hundreds to thousands of ignition vulnerable homes are at risk, it's impossible to prevent the community fire disaster.

Creating ignition and fire resistant communities is the only way we can prevent disastrous community fire destruction.

Exactly. The key to preventing community destruction during extreme wildfires is to prevent homes from catching fire. not by attempting extreme wildfire control.

There are readily available ignition resistant and non-combustible home building materials and designs along with the mitigation of flammable materials immediately surrounding homes that can make the difference between community survival and destruction.

I'm not aware that they have made the decision one way or the other with regard to rebuilding. But zoning is an incredibly controversial kind of action. And so there is a definite resistance to new zoning and new codes. So to my knowledge, no. That is astonishing.

Yes. When I speak with fire chiefs, they often ask me, what should I tell homeowners? And I say to them, well, tell them we can't be effective without you. It sounds simple, but the reality is urban firefighting efforts cannot be effective during extreme wildfire conditions without ignition resistant homes. But ignition resistant is not fireproof.

Most ignitions will be eliminated with ignition resistance, but some ignitions should be expected. And that means firefighters will remain essential for community fire protection.

Takeaway one, current wildfire strategies are failing. That's evidenced by massive fires and destruction, most recently in Southern California. My second takeaway is extreme wildfires are inevitable, but disastrous community destruction is not. Wildfires initiate community ignitions with burning embers, but then communities burn as urban fires, not as wildfires.

This means preventing disasters isn't about stopping wildfires. It's about reducing home ignition and community fire spread. And my third takeaway is the best defense is fire resistant communities. The most effective wildfire risk reduction happens within the communities, not in surrounding forests and wild lands.

Fire resistant homes and surroundings prevent most of ignitions that occur during extreme wildfires. And I have a bottom line. We can prevent catastrophic community destruction without controlling the uncontrollable wildfires. That's by focusing on fire-resistant communities, not wildfire suppression.

Thank you very much, and thank you very much for your interest.