What is the Wildland-Urban Interface?
The wildland-urban interface (WUI) can be found anywhere wildland fire can move from natural vegetation to the built environment. All Conifer Fire and Elk Creek residents can find themselves in one of the categories found on the diagram here.
It is worth noting that while a less vegetated area, such as the Ember Zone, may correlate to reduced wildfire risk, many of the destructive wildfires across the country have been in significantly developed areas.
To properly reduce the risk of wildfire in each area across the continuum, mitigation requirements and techniques can drastically differ. Having a Wildfire Prepared assessment provides the expertise and custom work plan to reduce your wildfire risk.
Overlapping Home Ignition Zones
Homes in the WUI are at high risk for wildfires through radiant heat, surface fires, and embers. The Home Ignition Zone (HIZ) is a framework for addressing these risks and includes three Zones:
Immediate Zone – includes the home itself plus outwards of five feet
Intermediate Zone – 5 to 30 feet from the house
Extended Zone – 30 to 100 feet from the house, possibly farther on steep slopes.
In many of our communities, homes are located on smaller lots with HIZs that overlap with neighboring properties, and this can prevent full HIZ mitigation. In these situations, it is necessary to work with your neighbors to reduce the risk of wildfire to your own home. A Wildfire Prepared representative can help provide the information you and your neighbors need to reduce the risk of fire transferring from one home to another.
Steep Slope Mitigation
Extending Defensible Space Zones
Almost every community in the foothills has significant terrain with the potential to increase fire behavior that can impact structures during an event. In order to reduce the expected fire intensity around homes and structures, defensible space zones may need to be extended, as this diagram shows.
All visuals provided here were developed through the Community Planning Assistance for Wildfire program. Permission for use was provided by Wildfire Planning International.
