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Wildfire Research: Advancing Science to Prevent Structure Losses
REDUCING WILDFIRE RISK AND IMPROVING STRUCTURE RESILIENCE
IBHS wildfire research identifies how and why homes ignite and explores effective mitigation strategies to reduce the risk of ignition. Through post-event field investigations, full-scale experiments, and small-scale testing, IBHS studies how embers, flames, and radiant heat expose vulnerabilities on and around buildings that cascade from individual ignitions into structure-to-structure fire spread and community-scale conflagrations.
Insights translate wildfire science into practical, scientific mitigation strategies that help homeowners, communities, and the building industry strengthen structures, reduce risk, and better withstand wildfire. The ultimate goal: reduce the risk of large-scale wildfire disasters.
Featured Research
Suburban Wildfire Adaptation Roadmaps
Wildland Fire Embers and Flames: Home Mitigations That Matter
Research & Insights
Understanding Conflagration
Research examining drivers of uncontrolled structure-to-structure fire spread through embers, flame exposure, and radiant heat. This work helps identify how fires propagate through communities and informs strategies to reduce large-scale losses.
Building Components, Materials, & Defensible Space
Research focused on evaluating the vulnerabilities of building components, construction materials, and defensible space zones to wildfire exposure. This work identifies how specific features contribute to structure loss and informs effective, science-based mitigation strategies to improve resilience.
Post-Wildfire Investigations
IBHS conducts post-wildfire field investigations to document ignition pathways, structural vulnerabilities, and community-scale loss patterns. By analyzing real-world fire impacts alongside claims data and environmental conditions, IBHS identifies how and why structures are damaged or destroyed. These insights help validate mitigation strategies, improve building practices, and inform science-based solutions to reduce future wildfire losses.
