Researchers unveil California building fire risk map
After analyzing 100,000 California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection inspection records from 2013 to 2024, researchers at the University of California, Irvine have identified the key environmental and human factors responsible for the most destructive wildfires and created a high-resolution, actionable fire risk map.
The growing tendency of building homes in the wildland-urban interface, near the source of forest fires, has resulted in significant damage from wildfires. However, this new research reveals a fire risk map that California homebuilders and other industry professionals can utilize for optimal fire prevention methods.
“We uncovered predictable features in how buildings are destroyed in California’s wildfires, which shows that the damage pattern is not random,” said lead author Somnath Bar, a UC Irvine postdoctoral scholar in civil and environmental engineering. “We have found that by identifying the precise combination of structural, environmental and weather factors involved, we can establish a comprehensive, physically interpretable framework to explain, model and project which buildings are most likely to be damaged or destroyed by fire.”
According to co-author Tirtha Banerjee, UC Irvine associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, fire risk is compounded when building practices come face-to-face with environmental factors such as atmospheric aridity, high heat, wind and dry fuels, including trees, shrubs and grasses.
