Aug. 12: New Research Looks At Factors That Harden Homes Against Wildfires

Support for this podcast comes from the Central Valley Journalism Collaborative, connecting communities with the resources, infrastructure, and networks to ensure a vibrant local free press. From KVPR in Fresno, this is Central Valley Daily. It's Wednesday, August 12th. I'm Sarith Hawk. New research out of UC Merced shows that wildfires in recent years have been destroying homes at higher rates, but there's hope that trend could reverse. The study here is hopefully trying to provide a little bit of a silver lining rather than the gloom and doom. to give us a little bit of hope that we don't have to necessarily see these disastrous fires. We speak with the researchers who say they've discovered key factors that help make homes more fire resilient. That conversation in just a moment, but first, these headlines. Fresno County voters will get to weigh in on a transportation tax measure this November after all. The county will move forward with placing the tax on the ballot after a state law was signed last week. The decision follows months of conflict when Fresno County supervisors opposed the tax measure and the state intervened to put it on the ballot. Supervisor Gary Bredefeld recently ordered a feasibility study that delayed the measure's progress. The board received the study on Tuesday. All of us up here represent over a million people. We have a responsibility to make sure that when they vote on a 30-year, a 30-year, $7 billion tax measure that they have all the information that they need. And whether it's put on in March, which we are allowed to do, or November, they had the right to have that information. The board's majority took an official vote on Tuesday to instead place the tax measure on the March 28 ballot. That move was largely procedural, but it opened a legal question that will be settled in court. Fresno State is expanding housing options as students return to campus later this month. KVPR's Israel Cardona Hernandez was at the opening of a brand new housing complex Tuesday. One, two, three. The housing complex will provide a home for over 200 students. Some units can feed up to five people. Fresno State President Saul Jimenez-Sandoval says the project took less than two years to build. It went up pretty fast and it looks incredibly wonderful. The housing complex includes access to a gym, laundry, and even a playground for families.

Ashton Conley is a resident director for student housing. Adding the families and having bunk beds in the room, super cute and inclusive for the kiddos and having that playground right there accessible for them as well. The housing project costs $50 million and was funded through state grants and loans. For KVPR News, I'm Israel, Cardo Hernandez. Fresno State's fall semester begins on August 24th. A poll by two California nonprofits says economic pressure is reaching young people. The nonprofits, power California, and Latino decisions surveyed over 1,500 people aged 18 to 30. 80% of them said the cost of living is outpacing their wages. A majority also say they've experienced at least one recent cost-driven hardship. The poll was released ahead of the November elections to inform officials on the concerns of young voters.

KVPR's $10,000 drawing is underway. Do your part to support KVPR by purchasing your $100 ticket for a chance to win the grand prize of $10,000. Only 800 tickets will be sold. Purchase tickets now at kvpr.org slash 10K. And now to our main story. Wildfires are a growing threat in California, burning more intensely than ever before. According to Cal Fire, four of the most destructive wildfires in state history have happened within the last decade. That includes the Eaton Fire in L.A. County. Last year, it leveled more than 9,000 structures. Researchers say California's extreme fire weather, hot... Dry and windy conditions are driving up the risk. For homeowners exposed to this danger, what are the factors that could determine whether their homes are still standing? New research from UC Merced tries to answer that question. I spoke to John Aboxiglu, a professor of climatology, and Mukesh Kumar, a postdoctoral scientist who led the study. They both serve in the Department of Management of Complex Systems at UCMersed. Mukesh says it was important for him to frame this research in a way that shifted the lens from loss to survival. So we wanted to come up with a positive outlook in a way that how we can frame it in terms of survivability, like how the homes are getting survived, what are the factors, what are the main drivers in terms of the climatic as well as the non-climatic drivers. And that's why we wanted to understand the factors that is letting the homes to become more survivable. Yeah, I like that. Home survivability. What factors are you looking at to determine that? So we have looked into two categories of factors. One is the climatic factor, which is the extreme fire weather days. And then the second category is the non-climatic factors, which are mostly the age of structures. And we have looked into residential structures. So that's why we are calling it as homes. So age of residential structures, meaning when they are constructed. And then ultimately, the second factor within this non-climatic driver is the surrounding vegetation. those really matters if there are surrounding fuels which can be flammable that could be riskier for the flames and for the embers to go to the houses and destroy them so we look into three overall factors And when you were looking at this research, Mukesh, you looked at two decades specifically that you called incident-level fires that happened between the years 2001 to 2020. So I'm wondering why those years and what sorts of trends did you observe in that 20-year period?

Yeah, so definitely the years comes all from the data availability and the base data that we had available for the incident report was only 2001 to 2020. There could be some recent years, but those are not publicly available. So we have focused our studies for 20-year period. And the trend that we found was very interesting that, first of all, we found that nearly two-third. of total exposures occurred in the western US and the homes survivability declined by 12% in the West and more so in California by 16%. So the issue isn't only that more homes are exposed to wildfires but that exposed homes are becoming less likely to survive. And John, I want to bring you in here because one of the big factors in this is climate and this sort of weather that is driving these fires. So can you talk specifically about that weather trend we're seeing? Sure. Yeah. I mean, we certainly know that a lot of these large lost fire events, the fires that make the news, the fires whose names we remember decades later, those events tend to happen during critical to extreme fire weather conditions, effectively a combination of hot, dry, and windy conditions that allow for fires to take off, allow for fires to resist efforts of fire suppression to put those fires out. And we have absolutely seen a growing portion of our days falling into these extreme fire weather conditions, and that's certainly a product of a warming and drying climate across the West. And, you know, John, Mukesh just mentioned that in California and in the West, specifically, the amount of exposure has really gone up. What is it about our state right now, the conditions we're seeing that is contributing to that? Yeah, California is really fascinating. We have obviously a very large population. We have a lot of people that are living in what we call the wildland urban interface, which is effectively the sort of the intersection of wildland fuels and human settlement patterns. And then the real kicker in California is that we have a perfect climate for wildfire. We have wet, cool seasons, and then we have very, very long. hot dry seasons. And that allows for fuels to grow and then for them to dry out. And then at the end of it, sort of a crescendo sort of that happens in the fall is that we get these downslope wind events, Santa Ana wind events in Southern California, Diablo wind events in Northern California. And those are responsible for a lot of the fires that sort of start in the wildlands, start uphill and then move downhill into communities. Those are the sorts of fires like the Palisades fire, the campfire, the wine country fires, the fires that really cause significant losses in property and unfortunately also lives.

Yeah, we just saw that. I know your study is only focusing up to 2020, but the huge Los Angeles County wildfires just a couple years ago. And that was a factor, right? It was a lot of homes in sort of these wildland areas. And did your studies sort of look at that trend as well? I know you're looking at vegetation and the types of structures. What was it really telling you about the way we're building in California? So regarding the like where we are building for example in California some of the what we have looked into we have looked into all the structures that are being exposed and the age groups of those structures meaning when they are constructed and what we found is that when we classify it into two categories the structures that are built before 1990 we are calling them as older homes and the structure that are built after 1990 those are basically the newer homes so we found that the survivability to the homes that are newer in california has better survivability like has higher survivability as compared to the older homes and the probable reason could be due to the the modern building codes that the newer structures newer constructions have followed that could have definitely increased the severity to these homes specifically in California Got it. Oh, that's interesting. So it's actually the newer homes because of the way they're built and the construction. It's actually being able to withstand fires. But, John, you're also saying that the fires are hotter and more intense now. Yeah. I think the fires that we are seeing today are certainly faster, hotter, more intense, more likely to result in damage. And that's a function of both sort of the growing drawing of our landscape with a changing climate. It's also due to the fact that we've been really, really successful at suppressing fire for a century. And today we're able to suppress fire under moderate fire weather conditions. And we're unable to suppress fire under these extreme conditions. And the byproduct of that is that we have more fuel on the landscape today. So we have a landscape today where we have hotter and drier conditions. And when we have winds and conditions, things all come into alignment. And we have more fuel. And people are residing in these areas. So that's sort of a perfect storm for the widespread fire disasters that we're seeing. And the study here is hopefully trying to provide a little bit of. a silver lining rather than the gloom and doom to give us a little bit of hope that we don't have to necessarily see these disastrous fires. We may still have fires in the landscape, but not necessarily disastrous fires. And John, how would you say residents and homeowners should consider the results of your research when deciding on where they want to live?

I think in a lot of, you know, fire prone environments, we have to accept that fire is going to happen. We've done a really good job for a long time at trying to keep fire out of these landscapes and assuming that's just not going to happen. It's not going to happen to us necessarily. And that's clearly no longer viable given the changes in the environment that we're seeing. So now it's a question of, okay, we are going to accept that fire is going to happen. But let's make our community and our structure more resilient. to the fire that will come and there are a host of things that can be done california has actually led the way in legislation such that houses that are built after 2008 in a firefront environment are built to a code where they have fire resistant siding roofs soffits and eaves there's also a measure that's underway to basically you know require people to clear vegetation within five feet of their structure there are efforts like this that can actually improve the survivability of structures and so i think we can focus on those things along with trying to remove vegetation around communities such that when a fire does approach a community that fire may lose intensity, may not be burning as hot. And that's going to provide a better approach for fire suppression to actually work on that fire and to improve the survivability of structures in the path of those fires. Well, John, Aboxaglu and Moukesh Kumar with the Department of Management of Complex Systems at UC Merced. I want to thank you both so much for making time to join us. Thank you for having us. Thank you for having us, Asper. And that's today's show. Today's episode was produced by Jonathan Linden and KVPR. I'm Sarith Hawke. Find the latest local news anytime at kvpr.org.

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