Publication: L.A. Times

UCLA Expert: Daniel Swain: Assistant Researcher and Climate Specialist, Institute of the Environment and Sustainability

Synopsis: It will become far more difficult to build homes and businesses that are resistant to flames. That’s because an increasing number of wildfires raging through Northern California will be severe, rather than low- or medium-intensity. 

UCLA News: “There is sort of an engineering limit to how much fire resiliency you can build into a structure, unless you literally make them concrete, metal boxes,” Swain was quoted. “I don’t think anybody necessarily wants to be an arbiter of who can and can’t live where… But the reality — the physical reality — is that we’re going to keep seeing more intense wildfires. And they’re going to occur in somewhat predictable places, which includes a lot of the places that have seen the extreme fires.”

Read more at L.A. Times.