IBHS Side-By-Side Burn

Two side-by-side structures were constructed:
– The one on the left was constructed using traditional building materials that are found in most of our homes, with no Zone 0 recommendations followed.
– The one on the right was constructed using Enhanced IBHS Wildfire Prepared Home recommendations.

Both homes had the same vegetation in front of the homes.
A firefighting hand tool, called a drip torch, was used to ignite the vegetation and mulch in the exact same locations in front of the structures. Drip torches are used to “fight fire with fire” and consume fuel ahead of a fire. The same amount of fire was put down in front of the two structures, so both would receive equal amounts of fire.

Cushions on the bench in front of the Wildfire Prepared Home were removed before ignition, just as all combustible items should be removed from within five feet of the home during red flag days. Your trash cans, pillows, and all combustible items should be brought inside on red flag days.

You will note in the video that the flames are going straight up. There was no wind. IBHS did have three large fans but they were not needed for the demonstration. The humidity, of about 40 percent, was low enough that no extra wind was necessary, and as you can see in the video, the structure took less than five minutes to ignite. The well-hydrated vegetation dried out and ignited very quickly.

The mulch and vegetation within five feet of the home brought the fire to the structure on the left, and quickly ignited the vinyl gutter and wood siding.

The structure on the right, even though it experienced the same threat, had a non-combustible five-foot zone around the home, called Zone 0. Zone 0 was able to keep the spot fires away from the home.

The mulch also brought the ground fire to the wood fence attached to the structure on the left. The fence ignited almost immediately, creating a fire pathway to the left structure.

In less than five minutes small spot fires had the open eaves on the left structure engulfed with flames.

These are very small structures with little vegetation, and there was no wind, but embers could still be seen rising into the air looking to land on some kindling somewhere else in the community.

The fire behavior on the right corner of the house shows how local wind and structures can create their own threats to accelerate the fire.

We highly recommend you watch the video to understand fire behavior and why Home Hardening and Defensible Space, things you can do, are so important.