NFPA Journal - Summer 2021 - 40

The return of an urban
scourge: At left, the
aftermath of a fire that
destroyed much of downtown Baltimore in 1904.
At right, the remains of
a section of Santa Rosa,
California, following the
2017 Tubbs Fire, which
destroyed more than
5,600 structures, killed 22
people, and resulted in an
estimated $1.3 billion in
property loss.
H I S T O R I C A C C O M P L I S H M E N T,
MODERN CHALLENGE

Wildfires

IN 1896, THE COUNTRY WAS MIRED IN a period that
might be called " The Age of the Urban Conflagration, " a reign
of terror that savaged American cities in the late 19th and
early 20th centuries. Cities including New York, Pittsburgh,
Chicago, Boston, Baltimore, and San Francisco, along with
many more, were decimated by massive fires.
That year, NFPA took steps to combat this menace when it
published the Handbook of the Underwriters' Bureau of New
England, which contained chapters on firewall construction,
sprinkler systems, fire doors, fire shutters, and exposure
protection, and later evolved into the NFPA Fire Protection
Handbook. Building inspection guidelines soon followed.
Decade by decade, fires in cities were increasingly contained
to the block of origin, the building of origin, and finally to
the room or floor of origin. The urban conflagration became
largely a thing of the past.
But now it's back in a new form: wildfires that are laying
waste to communities across the country and generating
hundreds of billions of dollars in losses each year. Development in the wildland/urban interface, or WUI, has essentially
become fuel for immense wildfires, natural phenomena that
science has demonstrated have been made more aggressive

by warming temperatures and abundant natural fuel sources.
Recent fires have destroyed tens of thousands of homes and
other structures, and even entire communities, including the
town of Paradise, California, which was obliterated by the
Camp Fire in 2018, claiming 86 lives.
Even as the destruction mounts-the number of homes
destroyed by wildfires each year has increased by 163 percent
over the past decade-we insist on putting homes, businesses,
and infrastructure into fire-prone areas, failing to understand
or acknowledge the risks. According to the NFPA Wildfire
Division, an estimated 45 million homes nationwide already
exist in the WUI; in California alone, a million new homes are
projected to be built in areas with very high wildfire risk in
the next 30 years.
" Without a new approach, we will not be able to dramatically change outcomes from wildfires in the WUI, " said Pauley.
" That's why the comparison to the urban conflagrations more
than a century ago is so apt-we used codes and standards to
build better buildings that responded to fire differently, and
we engaged the public to help them people understand their
risk and what they could do about it. And it worked. We can
tackle the wildfire problem in the same way. "

TOP, NFPA; GETT Y IMAGES

THE NEW URBAN CONFLAGRATIONS

40 | NFPA JOURNAL * S U M M E R 2 0 2 1

125th Anniversary_Summer 2021 DCS to ADA as R1.indd 40

4/30/21 5:07 PM



NFPA Journal - Summer 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NFPA Journal - Summer 2021

Contents
NFPA Journal - Summer 2021 - Cover1
NFPA Journal - Summer 2021 - Cover2
NFPA Journal - Summer 2021 - 1
NFPA Journal - Summer 2021 - 2
NFPA Journal - Summer 2021 - 3
NFPA Journal - Summer 2021 - 4
NFPA Journal - Summer 2021 - 5
NFPA Journal - Summer 2021 - 6
NFPA Journal - Summer 2021 - 7
NFPA Journal - Summer 2021 - Contents
NFPA Journal - Summer 2021 - 9
NFPA Journal - Summer 2021 - 10
NFPA Journal - Summer 2021 - 11
NFPA Journal - Summer 2021 - 12
NFPA Journal - Summer 2021 - 13
NFPA Journal - Summer 2021 - 14
NFPA Journal - Summer 2021 - 15
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NFPA Journal - Summer 2021 - 18
NFPA Journal - Summer 2021 - 19
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NFPA Journal - Summer 2021 - 38
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NFPA Journal - Summer 2021 - 40
NFPA Journal - Summer 2021 - 41
NFPA Journal - Summer 2021 - 42
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NFPA Journal - Summer 2021 - Cover3
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