The risk of a structure to ignite in a wildfire is calculated by a Home Ignition Zone ( HIZ ) metric . The HIZ includes at a minimum the space within a 200 foot radius around a structure . The HIZ is a guideline for whoever is responsible for structure wildfire protection ; landlords and tenants ( homeowner if they are the same ) are responsible for physically constructing and maintaining defense zones while local government defines land use boundaries in a way that defense zones are effective ( note : fire-resistant is arbitrary and is not defined in hours of resistance for a given degree of heat ; these guidelines are relaxed for non-evergreen trees which are less flammable ; this guide is not intended to prevent combustion of individual structures in a wildfire -- it is intended to prevent catastrophic wildfire in the WUI ) : There are three challenges . An example of the Fire-adapted Communities performance interacting with wildfire was demonstrated in November 2018 when a wildfire passed through the community of Concow in Butte County , CA . This was the Camp Fire ( 2018 ) . The Concow community was a Fire-adapted community . This late season fire provided a stress test of the Fire-adapted Communities theory . The Concow community was destroyed . The wildfire continued through the community without demonstrating the expected slowing of the flame front . If there was a slowing it was less than anticipated though any slowing contributed to allowing residents to evacuate ahead of the flame front . The wildfire continued through wildlands between the community of Concow and the town of Paradise , CA . The wildfire then destroyed the town of Paradise which was in the process of developing into a fire-adapted community . The wildfire ignition is suspected to have originated with unhardened electrical transmission line infrastructure which had recently been redesigned though had not been reconstructed and the new design did not include hardening against ignition where it passed through the WUI . The Camp Fire demonstrated limitations of the fire-adapted community theory in late season wildfires driven by Katabatic winds , and in the land management agencies ' responsibility in controlling infrastructure ignition sources
Camp Fire ( 2018 )
Camp Fire (2018)
Wildland–urban interface