Urban Areas Cause 'Jigsaw Puzzle of Fire'

In what some firefighters are calling a "once-in-two-careers" fire, California is grappling with its worst wildfire since 1933, with at least 31 people killed and over 20,000 evacuated.

The Washington Post reports that the Tubbs fire in Sonoma and Atlas fire in Napa have been exacerbated by widespread low-density areas of homes and wild vegetation. More and more of these developments have become popular in California of late. Jonathan Cox, battalion chief and spokesman for Cal Fire refers to these areas as "Wildland-Urban Interface," and "intermix".

And even though fire codes require houses in intermix areas to have fire-resistant roofs, noncombustible siding and 100 feet of vegetation clearance around their structures, that doesn’t change the major challenge: Firefighting tactics for vegetation and structure fires are fundamentally different, and combining them makes their execution more difficult.

Read more