Towards a Systemic Integration of Fire and Architecture at the Wildland Urban Interface

“The anthropomorphous apes, guided probably by instinct, build for themselves temporary platforms; but as many instincts are largely controlled by reason, the simpler ones, such as this of building a platform, might readily pass into a voluntary and conscious act”. Darwin, 2013.

6.1 Overview

An interstitial space that resides at the boundary of natural and anthropogenic systems, the wildland urban interface is thus a system of systems of which the constituent parts reside both within, and beyond human ‘control’. This chapter discusses the state of the knowledge of this pyrogeographic domain, and quantifies the scale of the present and possible future challenges to the current architectural and urban design WUI paradigm.

6.1.2 Of Thunder Birds and Beings: Systemic Architectures Most Ancient

“the four sacred plants are rooted in the place of emergence. The long roots emphasize the importance of connection to the central place of emergence.” Parezo, 1995.

Until the onset of the Age of Discovery [123], the peoples of the third largest continent by land area, of which a 1/3 have been estimated to have lived in the territory today known as California (Starr, 2007), lived in symbiosis with their habitat. Their culture and beliefs imbued with insight of the workings of fire and its regimes, theirs was an architecture of adaption, which synchronous with the seasons migrated not materially, but informatically, from one place to another, and from one season to another. Their mode of transference was a hybrid of praxis and theoria, learning by doing, but infused with mythological meaning and ritual, which passed between generations since time immemorial, was said to have originated from The Great Spirit (Nabokov and Easton, 1989). Built of locally sourced biomass materials, Native American single-story structures, such as the semi-permanent wickiup, which indigenous to the western United States comprises a dome-shaped frame formed from saplings that are flexible enough to endure seismic shaking, yet strong enough to support an insulating layer of Tule [Schoenoplectus acutus] Cattail [Typha], or Giant Wild Rye [Leymus condensatus], were burnt upon the expiration of their use. Thus, like the conceptions of Cedric Price and his collaborative peers, the worldview from which these architectures emerged placed not value on the permanency, but on the performance of structures, and did so within and of a transdisciplinary approach that perceived of the landscape as a coupled human and natural system of which fire is a fundamental part. Evidence as supports that statement lies in the repeated use of fire to create desired ecological states [i.e. fresh grazing] “as far back” as can be reconstructed (Agee, 2000, p.8) and to the extent that the ecological legacy therefrom continues to influence regional fire regimes to the present day (Spies et al, 2014).

Price’s cybernetician colleague Gordon Pask posited that Victorians including horticulturalist, architect, and politician Sir Joseph Paxton, had pioneered systemic [architectural] design (Pask, 1969), but, having done so in the absence of a metalanguage [theory], both peer and public appeared not to fully appreciate the significance of their work (Ibid). Herein, it’s posited that the indigenous architectures of North America, and all other continents, such for example as the stilted villages of the Southern Hemisphere, not merely preceded Paxton et al in developing systemic design, but did so across yet broader spatiotemporal scales. Furthermore, it’s suggested that the origin thereof dates to pre-history, for although, amongst other factors [i.e. landscape erosion], the temporality of its materiality renders physical remains largely absent, a variant of the wickiup’s architectural typology appears to be recorded in Palaeolithic tectiforms [schematic drawings] which found on the walls of caves at Font-de-Gaume, Dordogne (von Petzinger, personal communication, 2018) are dated to 17 – 12 tya (Fairfield Osborn, 2013, p. 812), making it a candidate for the foremost ancient structural type worldwide (Fig. 56). Bringing further anthropological context thereto, if, as hypothesized, the tectiforms represent Palaeolithic shelters as emerged early within human history, it may accommodate for why variations on its architectural theme have been found as far and wide as the Americas, Europe, and Africa.

As ever more archaeological finds expand our understanding of our genera’s evolution, evidence of the emergence of behaviours and technologies is tending to push backwards. For example, while human habitation of the Americas is widely accepted to date to >15 tya, a recent excavation near San Diego revealed markings on a Mastodon’s bone dated to 130 tya, which some palaeontologists posit, though not necessarily H.sapiens, was born of a genus Homo hand (Zimmer, 2017). In time, the combined analysis of archaeological, anthropological, genetic, linguistic, and other data may reveal the specifics of the archaic human journey. In the interim, regardless of whether our ancestors arrived on the shores of the western United States >15 tya or 150< tya, it can be assumed that on doing so they brought more than the sum of their biological parts, for their beliefs, values, and cultures came with them. Mitochondrial DNA analysis suggests the Native American population originated in Central Asia (Bonatto and Salzano, 1997). But, genetics is not all the ancient peoples of these regions shared, for traditional Asian architectures, like those of Native Americans, are built on cosmological foundations: structural design and materiality aligned to belief systems born of astute observations of the natural world and its workings in space and time. Numerous are the etymological clues to humanity’s common cultural ancestry, of which one, “Pan” was discussed earlier. Another, pertinent example is “nature”, which though today largely interpreted in such ambiguous terms as to be rendered all but redundant to science, is ‘born’ of the Latin root natus, singular nominative “natura”, of which the first declension is the “essence of a thing”, others including “the Universe” and “birth” (Etymology Dictionary, 2017, online); present-day interpretations including, “the physical force regarded as causing and regulating the phenomena of the world” (Oxford Dictionary, 2017, online); foremost [known] ancient variant thereof, “Nataraja” [Fig. 57], which is the Sanskrit term for the Hindu god Shiva in “his form as the cosmic dancer” (Britannica, 2017, online), as relates to the Vedic origin myths.

Just over four decades since Fritjof Capra drew parallels between Eastern mysticism and, amongst other fields, particle physics (Capra, 2010), and just under four since James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis marked the arrival of the aspiration of “a unified science” designed to unravel the systemic relationship between Earth’s abiotic and biotic elements (Lovelock, 2016, p. ix), few scientists exhibit Capra and Lovelock’s breadth and depth of transdisciplinary knowledge. As Bruno Latour stated in the early 2000s, “the theoreticians of ecology make no more use of anthropology than of the sociology of the sciences” (Latour, 2004, p.43), this being a statement as still stands today. Hence, few working within the sciences appear aware of the potentialities as become accessible whereupon one acquires literacy in multiple fields, therein the capacity to decipher codes, symbolism, and other modes of communication as, be it at the scale of disciplines or of civilizations, vary, and greatly, in space and time. As in linguistics, symbolism, religion, and mythology, whereupon subjected to systemic examination, vernacular architectures help explain how and why peoples and places as may appear mutually exclusive, are often quite the contrary. Not for want of unanswered questions as are of profound consequence to humanity has this circumstance come about. No matter the rigour of Latour’s critique of mainstream narratives and notions of “nature”, both within and beyond the popular media, government, and industry, scant has been the progress made towards dialogue of such depth as can go beyond “the dichotomies of man and nature, subject and object, modes of production, and the environment” (Ibid, p.2). Now, as then, no matter the ample lip service paid to the term, ‘political ecology’ has yet “to exist”, because now, as then, where policy is concerned, scientific data is largely interpreted as befits the particular ambitions of they in power.

Political interests in combination with ecological illiteracy have sizeably shaped U.S WUI fire policy since migrants from “the least fire-prone places on Earth” imported their “peculiar pyrophobia” to the region some centuries ago (Pyne, 2012, p.167). This issue is central to discussions of land and real estate development in the U.S., where indigenous beliefs, values, and cultures have been under sustained systemic attack since European settlement began. Economically, the matter is manifest in the fact that Native Americans have “the highest rate of poverty of any racial group – almost twice the national average”, of which one causation has been postulated to be the federal government’s holding of reservations “in trust” - the original intent of which was “to keep Indians contained to certain lands”, (Schaefer Riley, 2016, online). In other words, from the outset, the policy prevented against indigenous peoples traversing territories of the same broad spatiotemporal scales as had their ancestors thus hindering attempts to preserve their historically ecologically harmonious way of life. Ignorance of such architectural precedents is so widespread as for the invention of ‘pop-up cities’ to be commonly attributed to Western culture, such for example as when in 2016 an author stated that temporary architecture appeared “as early as 58 B.C.E in ancient Rome”, before citing further, more recent, examples from France, Italy, and the UK (Epstein-Mervis, 2016). However, the above, to use common parlance, were eating the architectural dust of indigenous peoples, including but not limited to Native Americans, who not merely anticipated the concept, but have enacted it for millennia [Fig. 58]. Unfortunately, nigh erasing indigenous cultures from some architectural commentary is but one of the, sometimes subtle ways, in which native peoples are kept, wittingly or otherwise, between a [Standing] rock and a hard place. Nonetheless, as understanding of ecology, and of the Earth Systems more generally unfolds, appreciation of indigenous knowledge and practice is growing, as is awareness of the environmentally synchronous nature of many non-European architectural approaches.

Contemporary issues as arise from U.S. land-ownership and management policy structure include an inability on the part of Native Americans to raise a mortgage, because banks will not lend against reservation land (Schaefer Riley, 2016, online). Additionally, despite an estimated >$1.5 trillion uranium, oil and gas reserves residing on reservations, 86% remain undeveloped, “because of federal control... that keeps Indians from capitalising on their natural resources” (Ibid). However, as has been apparent in news and popular entertainment media [124] of late, development of sorts is occurring on reservation land, but to the detriment of its residents, of which examples include the building of the DAPL and Keystone pipelines (Gambino, 2017; OpenInvest, 2018), and plans for the creation of a border wall (Levin, 2017), about which one reservation resident stated:

“It’s going to affect our sacred lands. It’s going to affect our ceremonial sites. It’s going to affect the environment. We have wildlife, and they have their own patterns of migration” Levin, 2017, online.

6.1.3 From Wickiups to the Wildland Urban Interface

“The expansion of human settlements is of primary concern as it shapes a series of irreversible spatial and temporal patterns on the landscape”. Mann et al, 2013.

Indigenous American architectures stand in stark contrast to that which replaced them. In the aftermath of California’s most structurally “destructive” fire on record (CALFIRE, 2018a), the Tubbs Fire of October 8th – 20th 2017, fire officials documented structural damage, “foundation by foundation” (Troy et al, 2017, online) [Fig. 59]. In total, analysis of ground and satellite surveys evidenced that nearly 5,700 buildings [approx. 5% of housing stock] in the vicinity of the city of Santa Rosa had been “destroyed”, of which 1,700 were in “heavily forested or largely undeveloped” districts, including the Larkfield-Wikiup area (Ibid). Historically home of the Pomo [indigenous peoples of California], the etymology thereof speaks to the regional biochemistry, for their name means “those who live at red earth hole”, which, as discussed earlier, in pedospheric terms evidences high levels of Hematite and/or Maghemite, which is usually a consequence of fire-prone landscapes.

Where the Pomo built architectures that, like the flora that abutted them, burnt seasonally, today’s regional Hominin residents build not with intent to start fires, but to fight them. Bringing perspective to the cost thereof, in the 2017 fiscal year alone, California’s Department of Forestry and Fire Protection [CALFIRE], which is responsible for protecting and stewarding over 31 million acres of the state’s privately-owned wildlands, spent $700 million on fire suppression, the sum thereof $274 million more than had been budgeted (Renda, 2018). But, though a sizeable swathe of the federal government’s national fire suppression expenditure for the year, which at $2.35 billion (Ibid.) was the costliest on record (USDA, 2017), it prevented not against loss of property on such scale as for insurers to question whether it viable to continue issuing new policies in the areas that were affected (Daniels, 2018; Adriano, 2017).

The Tubbs Fire was not merely the most structurally destructive wildfire on Californian record, but one of several that swept through the state that same month. Excluding public infrastructure and uninsured properties, California’s Department of Insurance calculated that, collectively, the October 2017 wildfires resulted in insurances losses in excess of $9.4 billion (Diep, 2017), against claims for the loss of 14,700 homes, 728 business, and more than 3,600 vehicles (Adriano, 2017). Yet, even the sum thereof accommodates not for the total losses of all affected by the fires. For example, having examined the insurance policies of over 200 parties as incurred loss or damage of property, law firm Friedemann Goldberg found that 97% were underinsured (Swindell, 2017). However, as acknowledged in a notice on their homepage, the size, scale, and probability of wildfires are not the only contributory factors:

“This [underinsurance] problem may be due in part to the scope of the devastation caused by the fires, the critical housing shortage which existed before the fires, and the higher than usual costs of rebuilding in Northern California” (Friedemann Goldberg, 2018, online).

A year that saw California declare its first state of emergency in September, thereon several more in October (Blankenbuehler and Warren, 2017), during which 4/20 of the most structurally destructive fires on record occurred (CALFIRE, 2018a), ended with the largest fire by acreage since the late 1800s, the event thereof the Thomas Fire [December 4th 2017 – January 12th 2018]. All in all, California experienced over 9,000 wildfires in 2017, of which the acreage burned totalled over 1.5 million (CALFIRE, 2018b), thus accounting for roughly 15% of the acreage that burned through the year (Hamilton, 2018). The full extent of the costs incurred by the federal government is yet to be established. But, atop $500> million as was allocated prior to the outbreak of the October fires, California’s representatives lobbied Congress for the state to receive a sizeable chunk of an $81 billion disaster aid package (Mascaro, 2017). Additionally, in November 2017 Republican Mimi Walters, in the capacity of representing several state representatives, proposed to Congress the California Wildfire Disaster Tax Relief Act of 2017 (Congress, 2017), the purpose thereof to aid individuals “displaced from such principle place of abode by reason of the wildfires” to which the declaration relates [i.e. they without insurance]. The proposal’s outcome yet to be decided, the 2018 fire season is already underway.

As evidenced above, no-matter their meeting the specifications of the current WUI fire building codes, the materiality, design, and overall schema of homes that have been built across states including, but not limited to California, is no match for wildfires that now spread with greater frequency, speed, and intensity than the codes are designed to accommodate. Which, given the bandwidth of regional climate, wider environment, and social trajectories, including rising demand for housing, suggests that the current WUI paradigm will endure comparatively fleetingly by comparison to its antecedent [Fig. 60]: the wickiup and its indigenous architectural kin, they being created with wildfire-synced cyclicality and temporality in mind, and within the resource and wider constraints native to the region.

6.1.4 On the Edge: Life at The Wildland Urban Interface

“Hold tight we’re in for nasty weather,
There has got to be a way,
Burning down the house.”
Byrne, Frantz, Harrison, & Weymouth, 1983.

Over 38.5% of U.S housing stock (Stewart et al, 2006) and roughly 1/3 of its populous (Berg, 2016) reside in the wildland urban interface. Covering roughly 9.5% of the contiguous United States [77 million hectares] (Hamilton, 2018), it is by far the “fastest-growing land-use type” (Whitehouse, 2016, online), accounting for nearly 80% of recent land-use conversion (Mann et al, 2013). Driven by diverse and complex factors including amenity and lifestyle migration, spatial spill-overs, regional economic growth and access to employment, and lower cost housing (Ibid; Paveglio et al, 2015b; Mann et al, 2013, Heimlich and Anderson, 2001), nationally, residential building in the WUI has expanded at a rate of 60% since 1990 (Whitehouse, 2016; Theobald and Romme, 2007), of which, in the western states approx. 70% is privately owned (Schoennagel and Nelson, 2009).

Housing 43.3 million homes (Radeloff et al, 2018), currently, nearly 900,000 thereof, of which the estimated reconstruction costs are $238 billion, are classified at high or very high risk of wildfire (McCrea, 2016). In 2003, analysis of Geographic Information System [GIS] data placed 40 million hectares of WUI at risk of wildfire (Mell et al, 2010). Given the interim rate of development, in combination with current climatological conditions, one can thus assume that, whatsoever the present figure, it exceeds the sum thereof. As the WUI has expanded, so too have the number of properties lost to wildfire. Throughout the 1960s, on average, just over 200 structures a year were destroyed by wildfire (Ibid). By the 1970s the figure had nearly doubled, by the 1980s it had reached 670, and by the 1990s 932 (Ibid). However, between 2000 and 2015 the volume thereof rose to over 3,000 (Maranghides et al, 2015). As discussed earlier, climate change and wildland fire policies are primary contributory factors.

Globally, the relationship between populous and burned area tends be non-monotonic, wherein, initially, rising population density tends incur an increase in burned area, the sum thereof peaking, to then decline (Bistinas et al, 2013). But, in the most fire-prone regions of the U.S., beyond densities of approx. 30 p/km2 burnt area yet again increases (Ibid). A recent study found that between 1992 and 2012, across a sample of 1.5 million U.S. wildfires, the ignition of 84% was attributable to humans (Balch et al, 2017). Furthermore, during that period the “human-caused fire season was three times longer than the lightning-caused fire season”, adding +/- 40,000 wildfires per year (Ibid). Ways in which people accidently start fires include sparks from vehicles, damaged power lines, discarded cigarettes, land clearance, and accidental fire escape (Krawchuk and Mortiz, 2014). In a bid to tackle the issue, arson or otherwise, Californian authorities have increased the number of prosecutions of they that start wildfires (La Ganga, 2016). Yet, at 95%, regionally, wildfire ignitions of which humans are believed to be the cause are yet higher still (CALFIRE, 2018c), the matter thereof contributory in the extending of the state’s fire season by +/- 70 days since the early 2000s (Brunhuber, 2017).

6.1.5 An Ecologically Antagonistic Architectural Monoculture

“he found many instances in which homes were totally destroyed while the trees next to the houses were only scorched” Jensen & McPherson, 2008.

The architectures of the present WUI paradigm stand a testament to the distinctly dichotomous relationship of the abiotic and biotic systems, and anthropogenic systems of the late Holocene. Whereas early humans, and the indigenous peoples of the recent past evolved architectural, design and technology systems that work in symbiosis with the environment, from the Early Modern Period [1500> AD] western civilisation has largely aligned to an antagonistic approach. Whereas ancient, but still living belief systems, such as Hinduism and Taoism, acknowledge that change and continuity, disruption and stability, and destruction and creation are two sides of the same systemic coin, for centuries the peoples of the West have valued the latter, but not former. Our architectures being the mirror of our mind-sets, both at the wildland urban interface, and beyond, into the city, early 21st Century peoples tend build architectural monocultures fit only for topographies of relative inertia, which, in the words of Dr. Robert Muir-Wood, make “unnatural” catastrophes “inevitable” (Muir- Wood, 2016, p.23/40).

Peruse the popular media, and it appears that all but anthropologists are unaware of fire’s integral role in the development or species, and indeed of nigh all terrestrial flora and fauna, the exception thereto being subterranean, polar, and micro-organisms. Bringing perspective thereto, Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently announced he thinks the impact of Artificial Intelligence on humanity will be “more profound” than fire. We can but assume that Pichai realises not that, but for fire, his species would not exist, nor with it the many technologies, search engines included, as are born therefrom (Clifford, 2018). However, he is not alone in worshipping at a veritable Temple of Technology, indeed, quite the contrary, at a time when umpteen science-defying propositions populate both consumer and trade press, many are they that believe, sooner if not later, Earth Systems will come under human control. Were, as some believe, humans now “gods”, thus attained capacity to choreograph all about them, but, in absence of understanding of how and why the systems of flora and fauna work and why, theirs would be a religion of ditheism. However, it takes not supernatural powers to manifest constructs, physical and otherwise, as embody a rivalrous nature between the human and non-human world.

Built on the premise that human control of fire extends to the scale of landscapes, and that, if all else fails, an insurance company or the government will compensate for financial losses, the increasingly many structures that populate the WUI embody none of the resilience features that enable fire-adapted flora and fauna to persist over time. Ecologically akin to invasive species, their presence has capacity to alter fire regimes, and in turn, all as rests thereupon. However, whereas, despite the many problems they pose, invasive species produce an ecological benefit of one or another sort [i.e. grazing], the WUI architectural paradigm of present produces not any such advantage. Hence, even in the [theoretical] event that the rate of structural loss to wildfire presented not issue, the ecological impact is requiring of urgent attention.

6.1.6 Architectural Oblivion: Design Briefs of Denial

“Given that government agencies around the world have focused on reducing fire hazards, much less attention has been paid to the ways in which vulnerable WUI developments might have been designed from the start” Moritz et al, 2014.

As in the adjacent wildlands, fire’s behaviour at the urban interface is determined by the site specifics. Thus, as discussed earlier, wherein urban materiality mirrors that of the wildland, so too does the qualitative nature of a fire within the setting, and vice versa: the greater the variance in the biochemical and topographical make-up, the less the commonalities between the two. The fire season lengthening, the number of fire weather periods therein increasing, and the volume of both natural and human ignitions likewise, two sides of a WUI fire triangle are complete. Turning to the third, fuel, the now many structures of the territory constitute a highly flammable abundance thereof.

The primary initial cause of structural ignition within the WUI being firebrands and heat flux (Moritz et al, 2014; Mell et al, 2010; CALFIRE, 2007), fire commonly takes hold through ignition of combustible decking, fences, outbuildings, and roofs and/or roof coverings (Maranghides et al, 2015; Champ et al, 2013). Quantifying the extent to which anthropogenic augmentation of the landscape impacts upon the probability of a residence being lost to fire, for every additional outbuilding within 40m the odds of its ignition are predicted to increase by 3% (Gibbons et al, 2012). However, homes with wooden roofs are especially vulnerable to ignition. One study found that whereupon a property with a wooden roof ignites its odds of survival are just 19%, compared to 70% in the instance that a property’s roof is primarily constructed of non-combustible materials (Gill et al, 2013). As with outbuildings, in closely spaced WUI communities, fire spread from house-to-house is commonplace during fires, and especially during extreme fire weather (Moritz et al, 2014), with higher density housing fairing worst (Mell et al, 2010). At times, the rate of spread is so rapid that, “even when first responders are at peak deployment of resources” they cannot keep pace, which in the instance of the Waldo Canyon Fire was an ignition rate of 1.3 structures per minute (Maranghides et al, 2015, p.5).

Compounding the “structure ignition problem”, as Mell et al coined it (2010, p.238), many commonly used building material tests “are not representative of WUI fire conditions” (Ibid. p. 242), the matter thereof in part a reflection of the complexities of fire’s behaviour in the environment, and of the fact that “characterising” that behaviour, together with quantification of structural response, and, more generally, assessing the risk of fire within the WUI is in its “infancy” (Maranghides et al, 2015, p.7). Furthermore, even in the event that new materials, policies, and other fire- mitigation innovations come into practice, for so long as the WUI is expanding, older housing stock [i.e. legacy building materialities and building topologies] will likely face higher risk of ignition during a period in which fire-fighting resources are becoming ever more stretched (Mann et al, 2013). By means of quantifying the scale of the challenge, when the Witch Fire of 2007 swept through the ‘fire hardened homes’ of The Trails development in San Diego, of the 245 that were within the fire perimeter 74 were destroyed, and a further 16 damaged (Maranghides and Mell, 2011, p. 379), of which, true to scientific probability form, 2/3 were ignited by indirect ember and firebrand attack (Ibid).

While, regardless of their origin, the structural ignition threat posed by burning embers blown aloft is relatively equal, and the fact that, statistically, roofs are amongst the foremost likely structural elements to ignite, recent recommendations for changes to the California Building Codes for the WUI accommodate for several classes of fire-resistance, of which the highest, Class A, is assigned to assemblies “effective against severe fire test exposure”, and extending across mineral-based assemblages including brick, concrete and copper shingles. Thereafter, Class B is assigned to assemblies “effective against moderate fire test exposure”. In turn, Class C is assigned to assemblies “effective against light fire-test exposure”. Thereafter, classes include the ambiguous sounding ‘Nonclassified roofing’, which is described as appropriate for “approved material that is not listed in Class A, B, or C roof covering”; Fire-retardant-treated wood shingles and shakes, building integrated and panelled or modular photovoltaic systems, and roof garden and landscaped roofs, amongst others (CA Building Codes, 2016). Given, both climate theory and modelling strongly suggest that extreme fire weather is the region’s ‘new norm’, one might argue there not room for roofing assemblies as meet not Class A, or standards akin thereto.

However, that mineral-based roofing assemblies are being assigned the highest fire- safety classification is but one example of how contemporary WUI building codes as relate to materials are tending to migrate towards thinking that has been expressed in vernacular architectures within some fire-prone regions for centuries. For example, the terracotta and clay roof tiling found in several traditional Chinese and Japanese building styles help prevent against the ignition of their wooden structures and walls. Another way in which architectural thinking, practice, and policy as relates to the WUI echoes ancient Eastern protocol is the integration of means by which to ground lightening, of which early variants include ornate dragon heads with iron-wire tongues that connected to ground-level (Fan, 2001), and which today incarnate in the form of rods, downconductors, bonding, and shielding. Yet, as discussed earlier, such is the scale of scientific-illiteracy within some contemporary built environment communities as for many researchers and practitioners to think it appropriate to place trees – they being entities that emit electrical signals that contribute to the local electric field, and thus, during a dry storm can become lightning conductors – atop of roofs.

“Too often people put themselves at risk by sheltering under a tree during a thunderstorm” Elsom and Webb, 2014, p.223

In addition to rooftop ‘forests’, the wider urban fabric remains vulnerable to ignition by lightening, for “the marketplace abounds with exaggerated claims of product perfection. Frequently referenced codes and installation standards are incomplete, out- dated and promulgated by commercial interests” (Kithil, 2018) they being words which, many still reeling from the Grenfell Tower Fire, make for disturbing reading.

Additional attributes of Eastern vernacular architectures that embed a degree of fire- resistance include the topography of triangular roofs, together with deep overhangs and eves, the slope of the former helping to displace embers and burning debris that falls from above, the latter reducing the probability of burning firebrands entering a building. Again, ancient architectural precedent pre-empted present-day developments: firebrands and embers that have either lodged in exterior building parts [i.e. guttering], or have entered an interior via vents or windows, is a primary cause of ignition of buildings during wildfires (Ramsay et al, 1996; Gill, 2005; Blanchi and Leonard, 2008; Gill et al, 2013). As with Native American architectures, myth is as much a part of Eastern vernacular architectures as their structural members, wherein, what amount to building codes were, and in some regions continue, to be transferred through oral not written means. As in linguistics, in order to, metaphorically speaking, read these codes, one needs familiarity with the language system in which they are ‘written’. As discussed above, the dimensions of ancient communications systems extended beyond two, instead operating on multiple time and spatial scales, both within and beyond the real world. In other words, ancient peoples perceived of augmented realities, including, but not limited to the application thereof to solving complex architectural problems. In Chinese vernacular architecture this is expressed through features including building orientation, dimensions, floor plan, materiality, motifs, colours, and rebuses [pictorial codification] that reflect metaphysical concepts including the auspicious powers as were attributed to the mythological creature Chiwen [Hornless-dragon mouth] [Fig. 61], which included protecting against fire, flood, and typhoon, and summoning rainfall.

A testament to the capacity of Eastern vernacular architectures to endure fire, amongst other hazards, is the Buddhist temple precinct of Horyu-ji, which completed in 607AD, and partially destroyed in a fire of 670AD, nonetheless houses some of the oldest wooden buildings worldwide. But, in the boundary-blurring domain of both the ancient and contemporary wildland urban interface, anthropogenic augmentation of the threat posed by wildfire extends beyond architecture, and into the [cultivated] landscape.

6.1.7 Building Firewalls and Disciplinary Bridges

“Actions intended to reduce short-term risk (e.g. fire suppression) can produce positive feedbacks that lead to elevated longer-term risk of loss to high- severity fires. This and other maladaptive responses to fire-prone ecosystems have catalysed destabilising (positive) feedbacks” Spies et al, 2014.

The original ‘fire walls’ defended not against computer viruses. Providing 6> hours of fire resistance their various designs prevented against the spread of fire by limiting ignition by firebrands, and compartmentalising fire outbreaks (Fan, 2001). However, the walls were but the second line of fire defence, the first being the creation of a fire break, of which one variant was the building of roads, as was utilised in the planning of Zhou City two millennia ago (Ibid). Fast forward from the age in which Confucianism and Taoism became the predominant schools of Chinese philosophical thought, and one finds western science aligning to one and the same strategy.

Within the WUI fire-risk assessment extends beyond the building and into the landscape. As in the adjacent wildland, the probability of a fire outbreak varies greatly from one location to another, and one season to another, with the odds coupled across a matrix of factors including weather conditions, fuel state, and availability of ignition sources. Presently, as has been the case for some several decades, U.S. wildland policy favours vegetative thinning via methods including clearing, prescribed burning [125], grazing, and mechanical thinning far beyond the WUI boundary. As discussed earlier, the underlying premise is that in reducing the quantity of fuel, forest agencies reduce the probability of fires that grow to such scale and intensity as can be not ‘fought’, and that consequently spread to the WUI. However, an ever-growing body of studies now challenges this engineering-led approach, highlighting that, unlike gardens, no matter the scale of the budget as is assigned thereto [126], ‘wild’ lands are beholden not wholly to human actions. Syphard succinctly summed up the situation in stating that “despite enormous investments in wildland fuel manipulation, improvements in fire-safe codes, and building regulations, and advanced fire suppression tactics” structural loses to wildfire have increased (2012, online). Additionally, as posited by Pyne (2010), the policy may incline some homeowners within the WUI to wrongly assume it provides of protection against wildfire. Hence, several recent studies and publications have advocated for restricted development in the foremost fire-prone locations (Moritz et al, 2014; Mann et al, 2013; Gibbons et al, 2012; Pyne, 2010), and for a ‘radical rethink’ in the design and planning, at both the building and landscape scale, for the WUI as a whole (Pyne, 2017).

Conversely, the landscaping immediately adjacent to a structure impacts greatly on its odds of ignition (Moritz et al, 2014). Gibbons et al estimated that, in severe fire weather, “reducing trees and shrubs from 90% to 5% cover within 40m could potentially reduce house loss by an average of 43%” through limiting exposure to burning embers and radiant heat, while also creating defensible space (2012, p.2). Additionally, whereupon the upwind distance of structures to trees and shrubs is increased from 0 to 100m the probability of the former’s ignition is predicted to reduce by 26% (Ibid). Earlier studies support Gibbons et al’s findings, concluding that in “worst case scenario” structures standing a minimum of 30m from forests and shrublands constitutes a “safe distance” (Mell et al, 2010, p.242). However, the above probabilities are averages and in the many and diverse real-world scenarios ratios rise and fall depending on factors including but not limited to the local fire regimes, weather patterns, topography, fuel state, and duration and proximity of past fires. Thus, deciphering “the problem is complex and contingent, requiring continual attention to the changing circumstances of stakeholders, landscapes, and ecosystems” at multiple spatial and temporal scales (Gill et al, 2013, p.438).

In and around structures, homeowners are advised to remove dead vegetation and debris; plant fire-resistant shrubs; maintain an irrigated area and low vegetation; remove branches >3m of roofs; space shrubs 4.5m> apart; prune lower branches within >9m of structures; stack wood 9m> from residence; and, as above, limit tree density >30m (Todman et al, 2012). However, the privacy and views that are facilitated by foliage tend to deter some homeowners and businesses from taking such measures (Spies et al, 2014).

As during the Zhou Dynasty, roads play a fundamental part in efforts to prevent wildfires from consuming structures. Akin to firebreaks, roads also provide defensible space, evacuation routes, and enable fire trucks and crews to penetrate the wildland. Hence, whereupon the WUI expands in the absence of additional road links the probability of new buildings being consumed by wildfire tends increase (Ibid.). However, studies from wide-ranging regions evidence that the more roads expand into the wildland the greater the adverse impact to biodiversity [i.e. roadkill] (Gaskill, 2013; Hardy and Seilder, 2014) and the greater the probability of fire [i.e. ignition by sparks emitted from a vehicle] (CALFIRE, 2017). But, at The Tree Farm (Brook Resources, 2017) near Bend, Oregon, which opened in 2016, by means of optimising the speed at which fire crews can attend a blaze, homes have been clustered to “simplify the system of access roads” (Brey, 2017). While advantageous to the site’s residents, in containing development ‘residential clustering’ also reduces anthropogenic impact to the neighbouring forestland.

Yet another way in which fire mitigation methods of the modern-day West align to those of the ancient East is with respect to water accessibility. From the earliest regional endeavours in city planning, proximity of Zhou structures to water sources including ponds, lakes, canals, and rivers was a predominant factor in deciphering the positioning of palaces, temples, and civic offices. In addition to landscape water features, large copper and iron water vats were strategically placed around structures, giving ready access in the event of a fire (Fan, 2001). However, hydrological shifts make this not evident to all but the trained eye today, for most of the historical water sources have now run dry (Ibid), this being pertinent to the present and near-future of the western U.S., where though residents in fire-prone regions are recommended to install additional water supplies (Todman, 2012), persistent drought is rapidly changing regional hydrology (Cody et al, 2015). Compounding the significance thereof, recent studies suggest that fire retardants as had been thought innocuous pose a threat to the health of both flora (Hogue, 2011) and fauna, humans included (Knaus, 2017; Davidson, 2017).

6.1.8 Debris Flows and Human Detritus: Wildfires’ Hydrological Footprint

“An old, grim joke about California says that the state has only three seasons: summer, fire, and mudslides”. Rogers, 2017.

True to wildfire’s synergetic form, its relationship with regional hydrology is non- linear, instead extending across space and time both within and beyond the boundary of its burn scar. As discussed earlier, while fast-moving low-severity wildfires leave soils unheated and overstories in-tact, high severity wildfires are frequently stand- replacing events, therein have capacity to significantly disrupt soil hydrology, thus soil’s structural integrity. In the aftermath of a high-severity fire, regional flooding and runoff can increase for a period of several years, with post-fire debris flows commonplace in the first two, and typically triggered by the onset of the storm season (USGS, 2017). Such is the instability of soils in some post-fire watersheds that a mere 7m or more rainfall in 30 minutes can cause debris flows (Ibid). Often occurring with little or no warning, post-fire debris flows can pose significant threat to human life and property, as is evidenced by the events as followed the Thomas Fire, when “rivers of mud and debris” destroyed many lives and homes in their path (Queally et al, 2018) [Fig. 62]. If the wildfire was the jab, the debris flow was the cross, in a one-two punch hazard combination, as expressed in such headlines as, “Fires and mudslides have some rethinking the Californian dream” (Dobuzinskis, 2018).

However, in fire-prone coastal regions, post-fire debris, and other particulate flows impact not merely on terrestrial biotic and abiotic systems, but marine environments also. While the effects are yet to be analysed, satellite footage from the Thomas Fire evidenced significant ash fallout reached the Pacific Ocean (Schmaltz, 2017). Previous studies of the impacts of nutrient-rich wildfire runoffs found that algae blooms may result, and on such scale as could trigger ecological regime shifts (Morrison and Kolden, 2014). As highlighted by the ecologist Daniel Botkin (2012), in and of itself, change, including variations in species composition, populations, and distributions, is fundamental to ecosystem functioning. Within living memory, the wildfire events of late appear ‘extreme’. But, when compared to wildfires within geological memory, they are yet a magnitude smaller than has occurred in past epochs. Hence, though not necessarily conserving the particular ecosystem configurations of present, more likely than not, in the words of one of Michael Crichton’s most famous characters [Dr. Ian Malcolm] marine life will find “a way” (1990) to adapt to the influx of nutrients. However, as with other forms of anthropogenic pollution [i.e. plastic debris], the degree to which oceanic species have the capacity to coexist with the chemical remnants of burnt out vehicles and homes is yet to be quantified (Westman, 2017). In the interim, given the qualitative difference between ash produced at relatively low and high temperature [the former predominantly composed of organic carbon, the latter vice versa] suggests that, as in terrestrial ecosystems, the runoff of low, mixed, and high severity fire regimes will produce notably different impacts. Thus, whereupon evaluating the ecological impacts of fires within the wildland urban interface one needs think beyond it.

6.1.9.1 Costing the Earth: Insurance at the Wildland Urban Interface

“In the visionary plans for the new city set out by Sir Christopher Wren in 1667, there was even a site for a public “Insurance Office”. In the Rebuilding Act of the same year, only 9,000 houses were licensed, and all were to be built of brick or stone, with roof tiles”. Muir-Wood, 2016.

Of the many innovations that fire has catalysed, insurance is one. A concept conceived in the 1630s in response to London’s then numerous house fires, its introduction was stalled by five decades by the English Civil War. But, from the flames of the Great Fire arose the first private fire insurance scheme, which founded by Dr. Nicholas Barbon, marked the birth of an industry that, from its materiality to its management, would have a profound impact on the built environment. From the outset, insurers have not merely evaluated both the quantitative and qualitative nature of the risks that are presented by fire, but played an active role in reducing them. Integral to the creation of the London Fire Brigade, other examples of the way in which the insurance business has shaped our relationship with fire include the funding of science laboratories concerned with establishing fire safety standards [i.e. the Underwriters Laboratories (UL), Illinois, est. 1894, and the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety, South Carolina, est. 2010]; stipulating what can and cannot be insured and why, and thus influencing where and how properties and their contents are built; developing risk models and other theoretical methods that help inform our understanding of current and possible future threats to human life and property, and disseminating the findings therefrom through publications and other media. While multi-national insurance and re-insurance firms actively evaluate their path ahead, and with the benefit of some of the most sophisticated data analyses systems yet created, and $80± billion is spent annually on the purchase of catastrophe insurance, both within the WUI and beyond, “the number of people and buildings in harm’s way keeps rising” (Muir-Wood, 2016, p.254). In California, in addition to the factors listed earlier, the state’s insurance scheme plays a hand, for its “decision to become “an insurer of last resort””, has incentivised developers “to build housing in some of the most hazardous and ecologically sensitive lands”, thus “furthering the cycle of fire suppression and catastrophic conflagration” (Gill et al, 2013, p. 449 citing Troy, 2007).

Adept at handling risk the insurance industry may be, but when, worldwide, insured losses from natural and man-made disasters hit $144 billion in one year [2017] (Swiss Re, 2018), against a backdrop of an ever-narrowing “protection gap” [variance between the amount insured and the actual cost of natural disasters] that “has quadrupled to $100 billion a year since the 1980s” (Carrington, 2016), systemic sector change isn’t so much an option, as a necessity for its survival. While that statement is universally applicable, it is particularly relevant in the U.S., as in the fiscal year 2017 it accounted for 50% of the global insured losses, the sum thereof an increase of 20% on the historical average (Tabuchi, 2018). Insurance losses from wildfires fast rising, the probability that, in some states, insurers will revoke access to coverage as can accommodate therefore is likewise. Signs of sector stress have been building for some time, and no less so than in California, where in 2016 state insurers refused to renew over 10,000 policies in fire-prone areas (Daniels, 2018). Thus, as is already the case with earthquakes, it is not untenable that within years Californian citizens could lose the capacity to insure their homes against wildfire. While policy makers are seeking to “limit insurers’ ability to cut coverage” in the affected areas (Ibid), when all is said and done economics not state bills will decide the matter. Yet further complicating the situation, wildfires aren’t the only disruptive agent that insurers have to deal with. Such is the scale of insurance fraud that in December 2017 the Federal Bureau of Investigation created a task force of which the explicit purpose is investigating wildfire fraud complaints in California (The Economist, 2018). The fraud typically takes the form of identity theft wherein criminals attempt to obtain aid by presenting themselves under the names, addresses and social security numbers of those that have lost their homes to wildfires.

Whether or not insurers pull fire protection policy access from fire-prone regions of the western U.S., numerous parties, including the Royal Society (2014), Urban Land Institute (Braunstein, 2014), and the United Nations (Almendral, 2014; Jones, 2016) are calling for greater investment in building resilience to wildfires and other natural disasters. Whereas, others have highlighted the need to “use post-disaster recovery and reconstruction processes to create better lives and livelihoods” in the aftermath of such events, wherein rebuilding works replicate not such vulnerabilities as stood before (World Bank, 2014). However, given that, despite the advent of such financial instruments as ‘catastrophe bonds’ that trade on a ‘Catastrophe Risk Exchange’ by means of providing “an interface between capital and nature” [which translates to spreading risk between nations] (Keucheyan, 2014, online), some governments have not the funds to afford to compensate citizens as have lost their homes and/or businesses to natural hazards, the extent to which existing buildings and infrastructure can be adapted is questionable.

6.1.9.2 Chickens and Cosmological Eggs: Critique vs. Cliché

“his [P’an-ku] body became the animistic source of the world itself”. Leeming, 2005.

A subset of human beliefs, values, and cultures, that the predominant architectural and urban design paradigm of present is being burnt to its foundations at its interface with wildlands makes physically manifest the fragility of the ideas upon which the Global North, and many of its creations are built. Although, as architects, planners, and others within the built environment community have become aware that planetary- scale changes as impact upon their professions, and on society at large are afoot, and ever more have proposed responses thereto, as highlighted by Rachel Armstrong (2013) few have authored more than superficial augmentations of the architectural schools of the relative late. As relates to interstitial spaces and to the natural hazards as are indigenous thereto, many architectural researchers and practitioners have proposed concepts in absence of understanding of the sciences, Earth Systems and otherwise, thus have understood not how, whereupon built, their proposals would fare over near, let alone medium to long time. Furthermore, they within the architecture and urban design community commonly cite ecological theories as are not merely out-dated, but by decades, the matter thereof suggesting their research looked not to the state-of-the-art ecological sciences themselves, but to historic literature as was authored at a time when Clementian ecological equilibrium was hot off the academic press.

No matter how plentiful the press and propaganda as proposes the future to be the exponential expansion of the present, empires and their architectural legacies rise, and over time, quite literally fall. If taking the Fall of Rome as one’s guide, it would be not an exaggeration to state that the closer that fall the greater the propaganda effort on the part of they as wished keep the status quo. From awards to certificates to press, and more, endorsements and honours for architectures as are devoid of the capacity to coexist within all but the most hospitable of environments abound. Yet, as illustrated above, rising insurance and other property-related losses make evident that no amount of physical and theoretical armour-plating or camouflage could make modern-era architecture fit for an Earth Systems battle. Architectural precepts birthed of ideologies as perceive of the world as a series of closed systems upon which control can be exerted and containment enforced are being confronted with both physical, and economic reality.

As architecture’s naked emperors confidently march amidst admiring crowds, all too scant is such critique as exposes the often times scientifically-obvious shortcomings of many works thereof, and all too frequent are the conceptual clichés as wipe not Platonian canvases clean. Wildfire, and fire more generally, can remain not conspicuous by its absence from architectural proposals, for fire’s presence will be increasingly felt both at the WUI and beyond, including in those places where though known not in ‘living memory’, as asserted by the charcoal record, it is native to the land, such for example as the peatlands and moorlands of Britain, they being regions that, in close proximity to many towns and cities, will witness shortened fire-return - cycles whereupon regional mean average temperatures rise. As they as authored the Vedic and Orphic Hymns realised, fire, ultimately, is a manifestation not of Earthly, but ‘heavenly’ powers, more specifically the G-type main-sequence star known as ‘The Sun’. Thus, when fighting fire one is fighting that which is powered by a solar body of decidedly deitic proportions, that being 333,000 times the mass of the Earth.

In the words Moritz et al, “Remarkably, a coupled wildfire socio-ecological system framework has yet to be adopted for the more densely developed wildland urban interface where most of the human fatalities, home losses and fire suppression expenditure occur” (2014, p.58). However, as illustrated by the contents of this thesis, attaining an understanding the phenomena of wildfire, of its behaviour within the landscape, and of the near, medium, and long-term legacy thereof necessitates knowledge of wide-ranging scientific fields, and of their relations to one another. Extending that understanding to incorporate the built environment, and to the policies and the codes as relate thereto, requires familiarity with societal-power relations at the level of communities, of regions, and of nations, and no less so than at present, it being a time when, in some instances, heads of state no less, are denying the viability of matters of scientific consensus. Put succinctly, one can understand not the “trade- offs and sacrifices” (Ibid, p.64) as need be made to balance “short and long-term risks and benefits of different development patterns” (Mann et al, 2013, p.447) whereupon one understands not the complex systems as form those patterns. The geese that lay the wildland urban interface’s golden paradigmatic eggs will have roosted in not one, but several disciplinary sheds.

6.1.9.3 Epochal Architectural Shift

“First follow NATURE, and your judgement frame, By her just standard, which is still the same. Pope, 1713.

In the era of European colonisation of the New [to them] World, ‘discovery’ of lands drove innovation and enterprise apace. Today, it being an age in which satellites have nigh mapped every square mile of the planet, not discovery of lands, but of the workings of those lands is the timber fuelling scientific and philosophical fires. Constructs of ‘nature’ are central to all such debates as relate to the potentialities for humanity and planetary futures. But, as discussed earlier, some notions thereof are not merely profoundly ecological illiterate, but to the extent of evidencing there to be truth in Alexander Pope’s words, “A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring” (Ibid).

As the sciences have become ever more endowed with means by which to interrogate Earth systems at the broadest spatiotemporal scales, that in ‘nature’, as defined by the etymological origins of the word [the Universe], “all things change” (Heraclitus, 2001, p.15) and at such scales and speeds as far exceed they witnessed within the lifespan of g. Homo, let alone living memory, has become apparent. However, even whereupon one reduces the event horizon to mere human timescales, when architectures as are built in one environmental era become unfit for another a paradigmatic shift occurs. Ecological regime changes necessitate architectural regime changes, for no matter their ability to meet the ilk of BIM and LEED building guidelines, any such structures as obstruct the ebbs and the flows of local, regional, and in turn, planetary biochemical and physical systems will, in time, be overwhelmed.

Architectural and urban systems need work with, not against historical – and future possible – fire regimes, thus conceptually, materially, informatically, and practically align to local, and regional biochemistry, topography, ecology, climate, and wider Earth systems parameters, and to the ever-changing configurations thereof. As relates to not only wildfire, but to flooding and all other cyclical events, such architectures of adaption need be synchronous with the seasons, and with all such variations as reside therein [i.e. timing and spatial extent], this being a quality as is expressed in both Native American, and in other indigenous architectures of present and past, dating at least as far back as Mesopotamian times. However, contemporary and future architectural and urban design systems need not merely adapt technically, but conceptually, therein philosophically. One of several classes of natural hazard imperative to the functioning of both abiotic and biotic systems, wildfires are not a ‘take it or leave it’ option.

In a play on Spinozan theory [127], within pyrogeographic regions this author advocates for architecture as accommodates for ‘nature pyronaturans’, the intended meaning that of nature in its active [dynamic] sense, as specifically relates to wildfire. But, the lens applied thereto stems not from the 17th century, but early Indo-European cultures, thus the age from which that Wilhelm von Humboldt would term ‘sanskritisch’ came forth, and to ontological constructs in which creation and destruction are two sides of the same coin, thus opportunity is not mutually exclusive from risk. All classes of natural hazards present ways in which both materially and informatically, architecture, urban design, and the composites thereof, cities, can evolve by means of becoming ‘fitter’ as Darwin might say, for their present and future purpose. But, the particular qualities of wildfire, it being a phenomenon that redistributes nutrients and materials locally, and within timeframes that, unlike major geological events [i.e. earthquakes and eruptions] are relative at the architectural scale [i.e. occur over years, decades, or centuries, as opposed to millennia and multiples thereof], of which the spatiotemporal dimensions are coupled to the biochemical and physical lay of the land, and of which the cyclicality is coupled to the species adapted thereto, present particularly potent intellectual and creative, as well as much needed technical potentialities. But, before discussing WUI futures, thereon synthesizing the sum of the matters so far discussed, I present Part II of the case studies, in which three of the foremost significant wildfires of recent times, and the human impacts thereof are examined.

Footnotes

[123] Early 15th to late 18th century.

[124] In reference to an episode of the U.S. televised drama ‘Designated Survivor’ in which the character of President Kirkman, a former architect and urban professor, addresses a dispute over land development on reservation land (Guggenheim et al, 2018).

[125] Prescribed burning refers to fires that have been ignited with explicit intent to reduce fuel availability at a predefined site and landscape scale.

[126] In reference to the fact that, despite the U.S. Forest Service’s annual fire suppression budget having risen by 40% since the mid 1990s, during this past two decades the number of structurally destructive fires in the WUI have increased severalfold (USDA, 2018).

[127] In reference to Natura naturans [nature naturing].

>Continue to Chapter 6 [part II] here.

The thesis is also available in PDF format, downloadable in several parts on Academia and Researchgate.

Note that figures have been removed from the digital version hosted on this site, but are included in the PDFs available at the links above.

Citation: Sterry, M. L., (2018) Panarchistic Architecture: Building Wildland-Urban Interface Resilience to Wildfire through Design Thinking, Practice and Building Codes Modelled on Ecological Systems Theory. PhD Thesis, Advanced Virtual and Technological Architecture Research [AVATAR] group, University of Greenwich, London.