We’ve seen it over and over again.

A wild fire moves into a community and some houses burn and others survive. We in Boise watched it happen last year in the Oregon Trail Fire.

Now a new study by researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology tells us how it happens. For those of you who read this blog and the Idaho Statesman the answer is not new.

It’s not a great wall of fire that ignites homes despite every myth and a fire policy based on fighting fires in the wildlands to protect the urban. Embers start houses on fire.

The study examines the 2007 “Witch Fire” in California. The study: A Case Study of a Community Affected by the Witch and Guejito Fires comes to the same conclusion as the Idaho Statesman series in 2008, FireWise?

What was interesting was how many of the homes burned in the interior of the subdivision, not on the edges as is common. That supports the Australian tactic of encouraging people to stay and fight to protect their own homes.

"In the case of The Trails, research had identified that one out of every three homes was defended by the home owners, fire or police department personnel," the study reported. "These defensive actions significantly affected fire behavior and structure survivability and should be an essential component of WUI(Wildland Interface) post fire case studies."

The second paper in the study will look at how different construction materials and landscaping ignite. A third will use a computer model of a community to test the fire behavior predicted by different fire models and compare to what’s been seen before.

Should be good reading but I’m doubtful it will change fire policy anytime soon.