Watching the devastation from the current wildfires in California underscores the need to fireproof buildings and properties, says Anthony Marks, owner of an Okanagan-based company that constructs fire resistant modular homes.
“In California, it's horrible. We aren’t there first hand to see it, but the footage we do see is pretty horrific,” said Marks, who lives on Vancouver Island and has taken some steps to make his home more resistant to fire, like installing flame resistant siding. While his current location is less fire prone than the Okanagan, the number of fires on Vancouver Island has doubled over the past five years.
In California, which has seen current wildfires kill at least 27 people and destroy 14,000 structures, photos have emerged of neighbourhoods flattened by the blazes with a few houses left standing. There are multiple factors that determine fire spread, such as wind direction, but the materials used to build homes also plays a role in how likely they are to burn.
This month, Oregon announced that homeowners in high-risk wildfire areas of the state are required to reduce vegetation on their properties and adhere to new building codes in fire risk areas. Meanwhile, Canada, which has experienced an increase in devastating fires in recent years, relies on patchwork, mostly voluntary, measures to reduce fire risk. Some think it’s time for the rules to change.
In British Columbia, wood remains the primary framing material, Marks notes, but the fire resistant modular homes his company constructs are framed with steel. They also use wood sheathing coated with a fire retardant and fibrous cement board products for exterior cladding.
“I just believe there's better ways to build,” he said.
In 2023, Canada saw its most devastating wildfire season yet. From coast to coast, 18.5 million hectares were burned: an area more than three times larger than the province of Nova Scotia. A study published by Science last week found that a high volume of dry sticks and foliage in Canadian forests, which fire experts refer to as fuel, has created conditions conducive to extreme fires. The paper deduced that 2023’s unprecedented impact is just “a glimpse of what we're looking at for the future,” explained Anabela Bonada, manager and research associate at the University of Waterloo’s Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation.
There are solutions at hand to reduce the risk of fire to homes — Canada just hasn't demanded they be taken yet, explained Bonada. A 2023 report that she worked on outlined how a 75 per cent reduction in wildfire risk can be achieved with a 10-metre fire buffer around a home or structure, where debris, trees and other vegetation are removed.
Clearing debris is mandatory in some municipalities, but there are no overarching policies at the provincial and territorial level. Nelson, a small city surrounded by forests in interior British Columbia, changed its municipal bylaws in 2019 to ban coniferous trees and bushes from being planted within 1.5 metres of homes and structures. Fines of $200 can be levied for non-compliance.
Oregon’s new rules also tackle changing the state’s building codes, which haven’t been released yet. The codes will guide new construction, and could include rules around materials for siding and requiring ignition-resistant material. They follow the lead of California, which adopted some of the strictest building rules for new structures in 2008, explains Felix Wiesner, an assistant forestry professor at UBC and expert in fire safety engineering.
Canada’s National Building Code is geared toward protecting buildings and homes in cities and doesn’t refer to wildfires. The power to make changes geared more specifically to wildfires rests with provincial building codes and municipal bylaws, Wiesner explains, which results in something of a patchwork. “It's a bit of a mess because it's different bylaws in every little community, [which] make it hard to track,” he noted.
Andy McEvoy, a faculty research assistant at Oregon State University’s College of Forestry who worked on the hazard maps that inform the new rules, told The Associated Press, that 2020’s record-breaking fires that killed nine people and destroyed thousands of homes “really cried out for a statewide — a truly statewide — strategy to respond to wildfire risk.” Oregon isn’t the first state to put wildfire rules in place: California enacted a similar law in 2020, requiring homeowners to maintain an “ember-resistant zone” within five feet of their homes where flying embers are less likely to generate new fires.
Most Canadian communities are lagging in responding to wildfire threats, Bonada said. Approximately 60 per cent of communities in Canada are in the wildland-urban interface, where buildings meet undeveloped swaths of land and forests. These areas are more vulnerable to fires, particularly when a high density of flammable trees and other vegetation are close to structures.
The National Research Council of Canada created a national guide for wildland-urban interface fires, which can help protect homes and buildings — but it’s a hefty document, intended for planners as much as the general public.
“It's an over 200-page document that explains exactly how you need to build communities to be wildfire resilient,” she said.
Fortunately, there are more accessible options. Bonada said programs like FireSmart, a national program aiming to increase wildfire resilience in Canada, have made simpler guides available.
“FireSmart has a whole construction checklist...So everything is there,” she said. Still: a guide is not the same as a rule. “We're lacking the: ‘you must do this.’”
Comments
Even with mandatory wildfire protections rules, wildfire and heavy winds will trump any protections you put in place. Even places that had roof sprinklers and large estate grounds in California were no match to the raging wildfire. All that is left are the foundations.
For sure there will always be "excuses" to not enact "protections rules", not the least of which is the enforcement required that follows. However, as long as there is no change in how buildings are built, lands surrounding structures are maintained, etc., the destruction will be the same - or worse!
This issue mirrors the mandatory seatbelt in cars controversy, which is now universally enforced. When the instances of dangers resulting from human activity require the intervention of PUBLICLY provided services - ambulances, public health care institutions, etc. - then mandatory regulations MUST prevail. I state this as a retired nurse who worked in B. C.'s largest public hospital.
Thank you.