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On a sunny Tuesday in Anaheim, in the parking lot of the firefighter training center, a small house exploded into flames while neighbors survived.
The fiery display is part of a demonstration of the effectiveness of wildfire defense strategies and could serve as a roadmap for Palisades and Altadena in the Pacific as communities begin to rebuild after the catastrophic January fire.
This event – co-hosted by the Business & Home Safety Institute for the Nonprofit Research Group Insurance Institute and the California Building Industry ASSN. – Pitted two small houses the size of a shed against the fire. One was built to typical standards, while the other was built using several fire mitigation techniques.
As expected, the unprotected homes met the fate of thousands of structures during the windy, dry disaster of January 7th.
On June 10th, 2025, a small ignition point around the Test House on the Anaheim Site.
(Etienne Laurent / for the era)
First, firefighters used a drip torch to simulate embers landing around it. Four industrial fans provided the wind and spread the fire across a mulch of dried wood and over the small shrubs that covered the exterior of the home.
Five minutes later, the shrub crackled as a pile of fire on the side of the house – a common storage area for facilities with wood-burning fireplaces – ignited. Soon, the flames raw the tall juniper bushes planted on the sides of the house, spreading the flames onto the exterior walls and roof just before the tree fence exploded into the flames.
The vinyl rain grooves hang down and melt, the plastic material flapping in the wind like a flag, the windows quickly shattered, and the flames entered the interior. Fifteen minutes later, the fire burned from inside, roaring the walls and roof. The tan color of the house burned black, and smoke swirled hundreds of feet into the sky.
The test house, not ready for a wildfire, is completely enveloped in flames.
(Etienne Laurent / for the era)
Twenty minutes later, the house was wrapped in Inferno before it collapsed and collapsed on a smoking mountain of burnt debris.
The house, prepared by wildfires, had a gravel-enclosed cement paper area, and there were no bushes in the house. The mulch was blown away by gravel and burned out. Several hydrangeas were sung from five feet from the walls of the house, but the house was unharmed.
“This is the story of two homes,” said Anne Cope, chief engineer at the Institute of Insurance.
The company’s chief executive Roy Wright said the burned homes featured architectural features that were far too common in wildfire-prone areas, such as plastic grooves surrounding homes such as juniper, bamboo and eucalyptus, open eaves and flammable landscaping.
“We’re not going to eliminate wildfires, but we can limit that reach,” Wright said. “The easiest way to start at home.”
The main emphasis was what fire prevention specialists call zone 0. It is the first 5 feet of defensible space surrounding the structure. To turn off the fire on that truck, firefighters suggest removing all landscaping from the five-foot boundary and replacing fire-prone materials such as grass and mulch with cement and bricks.
Firefighters are watching a house burning demonstration at the Anaheim site to demonstrate the effectiveness of Ember Integration Prevention.
(Etienne Laurent / for the era)
The clear area next to pavement and Hauyal-like structures at the Anaheim site demonstrates the effectiveness of what is called Ember Integration Prevention during a home burning demonstration.
(Etienne Laurent / for the era)
In contrast to the burning ones, the fire protection home featured metal grooves, fiber cement siding, enclosed eaves, metal fences, metal patio sets of tables and chairs, and cement paper. Torched with embers, the fire burned out to the 5-foot boundary and stopped.
“You can still have plants, you’re just five feet away from home,” Wright said.
Wright visited Pacific Palisade and Altadena a week after the fire, analysing how it spreads rapidly from home to home, and discovering that the home is generally on fire.
If the house wasn’t a century old code, it often burned quickly, and handed the fire to a neighbor, he said. However, if you built your home with fire ingestion in mind, with defensible spaces, fire-resistant materials, mesh coverings over enclosed eaves and vents in mind, it sometimes served as a shield for downwind homes.
Modern fire prevention strategies are already in place in the new Master Planning community in Southern California. Home builders have the hindsight of previous disasters and implement stricter building standards. My most recent success story is Orchard Hills. It survived the 2020 flame unharmed with meticulous planning and expert design.
However, LA’s housing stock is generally old, with many homes sitting on ducks, scattered across the hills and mountains of the area. If the fire is wiped out, it is architecturally vulnerable. Therefore, the light emphasizes clearing zone 0. This is because if a fire comes to the door, it’s the fastest and cheapest way to make sure you don’t use it as fuel.
“We need to do what we can to narrow down the path of destruction and give firefighters the opportunity to beat it,” Wright said.
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