Walking along Sweetwater Drive Tuesday I was struck by the different burning patterns along the ridge adjoining Oregon Trail Heights. It was like the fast-moving, flashy fire tested each home on the rim looking for an opening to burn and grow.

You have to see a fire shooting across a flat grassland to believe how fast it can move. Then when it hits a steep ridge like the one below Oregon Trail Heights it not only has the wind pushing it but its flames now have fuel above it to feed the process.

When the fuel runs out the fire dies. There was among some of the television reporters and others a perception that the Oregon Trail Fire came over the ridge and immediately engulfed homes in flames.

While some homes with cedar shake roofs surrounded by flammable shrubs and trees quickly ignited, others in the face of the huge flames survived. The wildland fuels which burned so hot also burned fast. The fuel was quickly consumed.

When sagebrush and grass burned in seconds it needed kindling to keep the fire alive. However, once the first house began burning it produced enough heat and embers by itself to heat up or ignite its neighbors' homes.

This process is the biggest challenge for us as we decide how to manage the wildland-urban interface. As several commenters of our series, FireWise? told us, getting everyone in a neighborhood to take the right measures is difficult if not impossible.

Residents across the street from those who live right on the interface are hostage to their neighbors’ decisions, except that they too can replace cedar shake roofs with fire resistant roofs and can provide firefighters with the defensible space they need.

Several years ago I had a shed burn only 10 feet behind my house. I didn’t know about it until one of my neighbors came over and told me.

By the time I was in my back yard it had already ignited the cherry tree next to it and my next door neighbor’s own shed. I was able to put the fire out with my hose before firefighters arrived, but the fire could have burned down my house, and several neighbors if we had all reacted slower. It is a good thing I have insurance.

The events Monday happened so fast on Sweetwater Drive that many people had no time to act. What firewise landscaping, home construction and zoning can do for us is give people more time.

There is a good argument that it be required along hazardous places like Sweetwater Drive and Immigrant Pass Court.