Fire risk to structures in California’s Wildland-Urban Interface

Abstract The destructive impacts of wildfires on people, property and the environment have dramatically increased, especially in the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) in California. In these areas structures are threatened by both approaching flames and lofted embers which spread fire into and within communities. While independent factors influencing structure fire protection are well known, their combined effects remain largely unquantified, limiting the accuracy of risk assessments and mitigation strategies. Here, we examine five major historical WUI fires—2017 Tubbs, 2017 Thomas, 2018 Camp, 2019 Kincade, and 2020 Glass Fires—utilizing machine learning (ML) analysis of on-the-ground post-fire data collection, remotely sensed data, and fire reconstruction modeling to assess patterns of structure loss and mitigation effectiveness. We show that the spacing between structures is a critical factor influencing fire risk, highlighting the importance of structure arrangement, while fire exposure, the ignition resistance (hardening) of structures, and clearing around structures (defensible space) work in combination to mediate fire risk. Utilizing an XGBoost classifier, structure survivability can be predicted to 82% accuracy. Results highlight the effectiveness of hardening and defensible space, with a hypothetical 52% reduction in losses. Our findings emphasize the need for community-level mitigation to reduce structure loss in future WUI fires.