The Wildland-Urban Interface Committee, in its third year of leadership under Co-chairs Assistant Chief Ethan Foote and Fire Marshal Mike Mentink as we continued to concentrate on code development, education, and expanding the understanding of the interface fire problem. Both Co-chairs joined Southern Division committee Co-chairs (Stuart Tom, Don Oaks, and Rolland Crawford) in early 2009 to support the Office of the State Fire Marshal (OSFM) with the 2010 California Building Code “Chapter 7A” Task Force. This nine-month effort resulted in the first comprehensive revisions to the code since the Committee worked with the OSFM to bring wildfire protection building construction standards into the California Building Code for the first time since 2005. The Committee also continued its work to advance model code provisions for interface fire protection. Co-chair Mike Mentink attended the International Code Council (ICC) Code Development Meeting in Baltimore this year to provide leadership on code change proposals to the International Wildland-Urban Interface Code, most significantly the evolving concept and definition of ignition resistant building materials which this Committee brought to the model code in 2007.

The two Committee goals for 2009 where we made the most progress were around education and leadership on the problem of interface fire losses. The Committee continued to follow life safety issues pertaining to interface fires. Co-chair Ethan Foote made a presentation to the International Association of Wildland Fire’s (IAWF) 10th Wildland Fire Safety Summit on “The Need to Evaluate Building Ignition Risk for Firefighter Refuge.” Co-chair Mike Mentink took the lead following the evolution of “Leave Early or Stay and Defend” to “Ready, Set, Go,” attended the International Fire Chiefs’ (IFC) Wildfire Conference in March on this subject, and participated on a “Ready, Set, Go!” panel presentation to the League of California Cities’ annual meeting.

Interface fire life-safety issues were selected as the focus for wildland urban interface education presentations at the 2010 California Fire Prevention Institute (CFPI) Workshop during the annual joint meeting of the Northern Division and Southern Division committees in March. An outcome of this meeting was agreement on the value of the “Home Ignition Zone” curriculum (developed by Firewise Communities through the National Wildfire Coordinating Group) for California audiences. Committee members Darren Drake and Pete Munoa facilitated NorCal Fire Prevention Officers (NorCal FPO) delivery of a “Home Ignition Zone” class in Napa last spring and committee member Ray Iverson is taking lead on bringing the class to Benicia in April.

The Committee made substantial progress in 2009 toward our objective to formalize the relationship between NorCal FPO and the interface fire experimental building ignition research program at the Building and Fire Research Laboratory of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Together with the California Building Officials (CalBO), the Los Angeles Basin Chapter of ICC, and the OSFM, the Committee hosted a one-day seminar in May by NIST researcher Samuel Manzello on experimental building ignition resulting from windblown ember exposure followed by a workshop to provide NIST with input from code enforcement agencies on realistic building ignition scenarios. Committee member George Laing took the lead for the Committee in facilitating meetings and conference calls to evaluate the potential for NorCal FPO to collaborate with NIST on data collection to characterize ember production from training burns.

The Committee anticipates advancing these and other interface fire protection issues in 2010. If you are interested in working in this area please contact one of the Co-chairs and join our Committee.