Definition
A wildland-urban interface (WUI) code provides requirements for new home construction in wildfire-prone areas. Building codes often reference consensus-based standards that are used to evaluate the performance of materials or assemblies. The cost is defined by the difference in expenses between constructing to meet code requirements as compared to traditional, baseline construction.
Introduction
A wildland-urban interface (WUI) code provides requirements for home construction in wildfire-prone areas. A WUI code may require additional development standards such as those related to infrastructure (e.g., water supply and roads), landscaping and site requirements (e.g., defensible space and storage of combustibles), and fire protection systems (e.g., sprinklers and spark arresters). Building codes are generally reserved for new construction or significant remodels that meet certain...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
References
ASTM E108–17 (2018) Standard test methods for fire tests of roof coverings, ASTM International, West Conshohocken, 2017. www.astm.org
ASTM E2768–11 (2018) Standard test method for extended duration surface burning characteristics of building materials (30 min tunnel test), ASTM International, West Conshohocken, 2018. www.astm.org
CalFire, Fire Cause Analysis (2004) Fire at the Urban Wildland Interface: Cost-Benefit Evaluation of Proposed California State Fire Marshal Building Construction Regulations
California Building Code, Part 2, Vol 1, Chap 7A (2016). https://codes.iccsafe.org/public/chapter/content/9997/
Calkin DE, Cohen JD, Finney MA, Thompson MP (2014) How risk management can prevent future wildfire disasters in the wildland-urban interface. Proc Nat Acad Sci 111(2):746–751
Canadian Standard Association (2019) Fire resilient community planning, building design and materials for northern regions. https://www.scc.ca/en/standards/notices-of-intent/csa/fire-resilient-community-planning-building-design-and-materials-for-northern-regions
Cohen JD (2000) Preventing disaster: home ignitability in the wildland-urban interface. J For 98(3):15–21
Cohen J (2008) The wildland-urban Interface fire problem: a consequence of the fire exclusion paradigm. For Hist Today Fall 2008:20–26. https://foresthistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Cohen.pdf
Dumm RE, Sirmans GS, Smersh G (2011) The capitalization of building codes in house prices. J Real Estate Fin Econ 42:30–50
Graham RM, Finney M, McHugh J, Cohen D, Calkin D, Stratton R, Bradshaw L, Nikolov N (2012) Fourmile canyon fire findings. General Technical Report RMRS-GTR-289. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Dept of Ag, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, p 110. https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs/rmrs_gtr289.pdf
Headwaters Economics (2018) Full community costs of wildfire. https://headwaterseconomics.org/wildfire/homes-risk/full-community-costs-of-wildfire/
Hedayati F, Stansell C, Gorham D, Quarles S (2018) Near-building noncombustible zone. Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety. https://ibhs.org/wildfire/near-building-noncombustible-zone/
Institute for Business & Home Safety (2008) Mega fires: the case for mitigation. Tampa. https://disastersafety.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Megafires-The-Case-for-Mitigation_IBHS-member-download.pdf
Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (2011) Wildfire demonstration. https://disastersafety.org/ibhs/research-center-demo-wildfire-2011/. Also see video highlights at https://vimeo.com/79340385
International Code Council Inc (2017) 2018 International Wildland-Urban Interface Code. https://codes.iccsafe.org/content/IWUIC2018
Leonard J (2009) Report to the 2009 Victorian bushfires Royal Commission. Building performance in bushfires. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274195745_Report_to_the_Royal_Commission_Building_performance_in_Bushfires
Manzello SL, Suzuki S (2013) Experimentally simulating wind driven firebrand showers in wildland-urban interface (WUI) fires: overview of the NIST firebrand generator (NIST dragon) technology. Procedia Engineering 62. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877705813012290
Manzello SL, Shields JR, Yang JC, Hayashi Y, Nii D (2007) On the use of firebrand generator to investigate ignition of structures in wildland urban Interface (WUI) fires, 11th Int’l conference on fire science and engineering (INTERFLAM), London
Maranghides A, McNamara D, Mell W, Trook J, Toman B (2013) A case study of a community affected by the Witch and Guejito Fires Report #2: Evaluating the Effects of Hazard Mitigation Actions on Structure Ignitions. NIST Technical Note 1796. Nat Inst of Standards and Technology Technical Note. https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.TN.1796
Maranghides A, McNamrara D, Vihnanek R, Restaino J, Leland C (2015) A case study of a community affected by the Waldo fire – event timeline and defensive actions. NIST Technical Note 1910. Nat Inst of Standards and Technology. U.S. Department of Commerce. https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/TechnicalNotes/NIST.TN.1910.pdf
Multihazard Mitigation Council (2017) Natural Hazard mitigation saves: 2017 interim report. National Institute of Building Sciences, Washington. https://www.nibs.org/page/mitigationsaves
National Fire Protection Association (2018) NFPA 1144. Standard for reducing structure ignition hazards from wildland fire, 2018 edn. https://www.nfpa.org/codes-and-standards/all-codes-and-standards/list-of-codes-and-standards/detail?code=1144
National Institutes of Building Science (2017) The Costs and Losses of Wildfires: A Literature Review Spec Pub 1215. https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.1215
National Research Council Canada (2019) Protecting homes from wildland fire. https://nrc.canada.ca/en/stories/construction-innovation/protecting-homes-wildland-fire
Penman TD, Eriksen CE, Horsey B, Green A, Lemcke D, Cooper P, Bradstock RA (2017) Retrofitting for wildfire resilience: what is the cost? Int J Disaster Risk Reduct 21:1–10
Quarles S, Pohl K (2018) Building a wildfire-resistant home: codes and costs. Headwaters Economics, Bozeman. https://headwaterseconomics.org/wildfire/homes-risk/building-costs-codes
Quarles S, Valachovic Y, Nakumura GM, Nader GA, DeLasaux MJ (2010) Home survival in wildfire-prone areas: building materials and design considerations. University of California, Agriculture and Natural Resources 8393. https://anrcatalog.ucanr.edu/pdf/8393.pdf
Ramsay GC, McArthur NA, Dowling VP (1987) Preliminary results from an examination of house survival in the 16 February 1983 bushfires in Australia. Fire Mater 11:49–51
RSMeans Online (2018) v 8.7. Gordian. https://www.rsmeans.com/
Simmons KM, Kovacs P (2018) Real estate market response to enhanced building codes in Moore. Int J Disaster Risk Reduct 27:85–93
Simmons KM, Czajkowski J, Done JM (2018) Economic effectiveness of a statewide building code: the case of Florida. Land Econ 94(2):155–174
Standards Australia (2018a) Australian Standard 1530.1-1994 methods for fire tests on building materials, Components and structures – combustibility test for materials. https://www.standards.org.au
Standards Australia (2018b) Australian Standard 1530.4-2005 methods for fire tests on building materials, Components and structures – fire-resistance test of elements of construction. https://www.standards.org.au
Standards Australia (2018c) Australian Standard 3959:2018 Construction of buildings in brushfire-prone areas. https://www.standards.org.au
Summerfelt P, Wheeler J (2008) Wildland-urban Interface code adoption: how to avoid the agony. Flagstaff Fire Dept. https://www.flagstaff.az.gov/DocumentCenter/View/12911/code_adoption1210?bidId=
Suzuki S, Manzello S (2017) Experiments to provide the scientific-basis for laboratory standard test methods for firebrand exposure. Fire Safety J 91:784–790
Syphard AD, Brennan TJ, Keeley JE (2017) The importance of building construction materials relative to other factors affecting structure survival during wildfire. Int J Disaster Risk Reduct 21:140–147
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Quarles, S., Pohl, K. (2020). Costs of WUI Codes and Standards for New Construction. In: Manzello, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Wildfires and Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Fires. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51727-8_241-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51727-8_241-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-51727-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-51727-8
eBook Packages: Springer Reference EngineeringReference Module Computer Science and Engineering