USA: Can we design neighbourhoods to survive wildfires?
By Adele Peters
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Small details in a home’s design, it turns out, matter a lot. If a roof is made of metal or clay instead of wood shingles, a flaming ember is less likely to ignite. A gutter can be designed to shed pine needles that would otherwise dry out and serve as tinder. A deck could use paving stones instead of wood. Screens can block embers from getting inside a vent. And if a house can avoid igniting, that can also protect it from spreading a fire to the rest of the block.
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In rural areas, the design of a house and the land around it can also help determine whether it survives. In the rolling hills of Sonoma County, one recently built house made it through the devastating fires of 2017. In that case, the fire nearly reached the house, but the architects credit stone walkways that buffered the home from the burning native grasses surrounding it.
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The design of a neighborhood also makes a difference. In less populated areas, that might mean placing houses far enough apart that one burning house can’t ignite the neighbors. In new developments, it might mean placing a green soccer field between a set of homes and dry native fields, so fire is less likely to reach the houses. (Irrigated fields, however, can raise other problems in a state that struggles with drought.)
Many factors influence how much of a disaster a fire becomes. Since fires are sometimes sparked by power lines, taking the expensive step of burying power lines underground would help. And suppressing natural wildfires has filled forests with more dead wood, making fires worse when they do happen.
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