When two different wildfires threatened Dave Kokot’s house in Spokane, Wash., earlier this month, he and his family packed up keepsakes as they prepared to leave. Kokot was less worried about the house itself. He knew he’d given it the best possible chance of surviving the flames.
“You don’t know how the house would go through a fire, but I think ours would have done fine,” Kokot says.
The siding on Kokot’s house is made of fire-resistant materials, instead of wood. He’d cleared the flammable vegetation around the perimeter and made sure tree limbs weren’t touching his home. Research shows those precautions help houses resist the onslaught of tiny, burning embers carried by the wind, the main reason wildfires spread so rapidly in extreme conditions…