Federal researchers have been working on a system to measure and predict the destructiveness of wildfires — similar to the way officials use the magnitude scale for earthquakes and other tools to rate and evaluate tornadoes and hurricanes.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology hopes its Wildland Urban Interface Hazard Scale will tell residents the likely intensity of a wildfire burning into their neighborhood. The scale would allow city planners to assign better building codes for the millions of people who live in fire-prone areas in the West and would also measure how those homes could help spread fire.
The proposed scale would range from E1 to E4 — with E4 being a location’s highest exposure to fire, be it from grasslands to a forest in a remote mountain canyon. Building codes and buffer zones between homes and forest could then be set accordingly.
Nelson Bryner, research engineer for the institute’s fire-research division, envisions the day when TV stations report that a wildfire is burning in an E4 community. But he said the scale is primarily meant to form the technical foundation for tougher building codes.
“If you’re going to build there, then you need to use the following designs,” said Bryner, who introduced the scale at a recent International Association of Fire Fighters meeting in Denver.
Insurers also are eager for results. Fire claims have grown exponentially. In the 1970s, wildfires destroyed about 400 homes nationwide. Since 2000, wildfires have destroyed about 3,000 homes a year, according to NIST.
In Colorado, wildfires accounted for more than $858 million in insurance claims in 2012 and 2013, according to the Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association. More than 1,100 homes have been destroyed in 2012 and 2013.
