The Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) is a well-known term in the wildland firefighting community as well as in areas where wildfires are common occurrences; however, many communities and fire departments around the nation still do not understand what WUI is nor mitigation strategies to preserve life and property if a wildfire becomes established in their area.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) defines WUI as the zone of transition between unoccupied land and human development. It is the line, area, or zone where structures and other human development meet or intermingle with undeveloped wildland or vegetative fuels. At the time of this writing, the Palisades Fire, a 15,000 acre fire on the outskirts of greater Los Angeles, has destroyed roughly 5,000 structures and has claimed the lives of at least five people.
Unfortunately, this story is all too common; the U.S. National Science Foundation National Center for Atmospheric Research (NSF NCAR) has calculated that global fires occurring in WUI areas has increased by 23% from 2005 to 2020. In the United States, WUI area has grown by 31% from 1990-2020…