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The deadly wildfires that are devastating communities in parts of Northern and Southern California first ignited in an expanding part of the American landscape: not in forests, not in cities, but in the areas that experts call the wildland-urban interface.
It is the transition zone between wildlands — such as forests, grasslands and scrublands — and human development.
Researchers say that wildfires pose the greatest risk to people along the wildland-urban interface. This is partly because the homes in those areas butt up against the vegetation that can fuel fires, putting their occupants in significant danger. And there are more fires in those areas because of the presence of humans, who often ignite them.
Despite the risks, an increasing number of Americans are living in the wildland-urban interface. There were 12.7 million more houses and 25 million more people living in these zones in 2010 than in 1990.
In a few places, like New England, the numbers have increased as forested land has retaken abandoned farmland: The wildlands have encroached on people. But in California, where roughly one million homes were built in the wildland-urban interface over that time period, it’s because people are moving into these areas. At the same time, because of climate change, the state’s dry periods have become hotter and drier, increasing fire risk.
Redding
The wildland-urban interface regions show where housing is near, or surrounded by, vegetated areas within California.
Chico
Sacramento
NEVADA
San Francisco
Modesto
Fresno
Monterey
Sparsely populated
vegetated areas
CALIFORNIA
Pacific
Ocean
Barstow
Santa Barbara
Palm Springs
Los Angeles
San Diego
150 Miles
Redding
The wildland-urban interface regions show where housing is near, or surrounded by, vegetated areas within California.
Chico
Sacramento
San Francisco
Modesto
NEVADA
Fresno
Monterey
Sparsely populated
vegetated areas
Pacific
Ocean
CALIFORNIA
Barstow
Santa Barbara
Palm Springs
Los Angeles
San Diego
150 Miles
The wildland-urban interface regions show where housing is near, or surrounded by, vegetated areas within California.
Redding
Chico
Sacramento
San Francisco
Fresno
Monterey
Sparsely populated
vegetated areas
Pacific
Ocean
Barstow
Santa Barbara
Palm Springs
Los Angeles
San Diego
150 Miles
Source: SILVIS Lab, Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Data is from 2010.
It isn’t easy to generalize why people are moving into these regions, said Anu Kramer, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Some move to live closer to nature, others to avoid government regulations or find a lower cost of living. There are also indigenous communities and people who work the land.
“We’re talking timber-dependent or ranching communities that really spend a lot more time interfacing with that land and have a lot more of their livelihood tied to it,” said Travis Paveglio, an assistant professor of natural resource sociology at the University of Idaho.
Northwest of Los Angeles, the Woolsey Fire has ripped through densely populated areas in cities like Thousand Oaks and Malibu, and other areas that some researchers call the wildland-urban intermix. It is a type of wildland-urban interface where areas of housing and vegetation commingle.
Wildland-urban interface
Areas where houses are near wildland vegetation
WEST HILLS
Sparsely populated
vegetated areas
NEWBURY
PARK
Thousand
Oaks
WOODLAND
HILLS
Westlake
Village
CALIFORNIA
Wildland-urban intermix
Areas where housing and wildland vegetation both exist
Woolsey
fire extent
on Wednesday
Pacific
Ocean
Malibu
5 Miles
Wildland-urban interface
Areas where houses are near wildland vegetation
Sparsely populated
vegetated areas
NEWBURY
PARK
Thousand
Oaks
Westlake
Village
CALIFORNIA
Wildland-urban intermix
Areas where housing and wildland vegetation both exist
Woolsey
fire extent
on Wednesday
Pacific
Ocean
Malibu
5 Miles
Sparsely populated
vegetated areas
Wildland-urban interface
Areas where houses are near wildland vegetation
NEWBURY
PARK
Wildland-urban intermix
Areas where housing and wildland vegetation both exist
Woolsey
fire extent
on Wednesday
Malibu
Pacific
Ocean
5 Miles
Source: SILVIS Lab, Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology of the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Fire has not deterred development in these types of areas, nor redevelopment. Using aerial photos, researchers looked at how many buildings were rebuilt in California after wildfires.
In 29 fires between 1970 and 2009, 49 percent of burned buildings were rebuilt within six years, said Miranda H. Mockrin, a research scientist with the United States Forest Service.
For 11 of those fires, data was available for a 25-year span after the fire. Researchers found that 94 percent of damaged buildings had been rebuilt, although they couldn’t tell whether the original owners or someone else had done the rebuilding.
“In general for wildfire, as other hazards, there is a big push to sort of return to normal, to encourage rebuilding,” Dr. Mockrin said.
California already has what Dr. Mockrin calls some of the strictest fire regulations in the country.
Since 1991, a structure built in the wildland-urban interface “has to be made up of noncombustible materials, noncombustible roof, closed eaves,” said Jonathan Cox, a division chief with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
The regulations are on top of any local requirements. But those rules don’t apply to buildings constructed before 1991. According to Zillow, the average home in California was built in the 1950s.
“What we don’t have is retrofit programs,” said Max Moritz, a cooperative extension specialist in wildfire at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “We retrofit for earthquake safety. And there’s public funding for mitigating flood exposure. But we don’t do that for fire.”
There have been efforts in recent years to create “fire-adapted communities” that are better situated to handle fires.
“We know these lands are dangerous,” Chief Cox said. “We know they’re susceptible to fire. How we build on these lands is an important consideration as we move forward.”
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Kendra Pierre-Louis is a reporter on the climate team. Before joining The Times in 2017, she covered science and the environment for Popular Science. @kendrawrites
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