Wildfires Are Getting Worse, So Why Is the U.S. Still Building Homes With Wood?

T he fire consumed the hillside, charring trees and bushes and homes on its way to devastating 70,000 acres in northern California. But Sean Jennings’ house did not burn. Its reddish stucco walls and green roof looked startlingly clean perched on the hillside amidst the burnt cars and white ash left in the fire’s wake. Inside, Legos and Christmas decorations were unmelted, and a propane tank behind the house was ¾ full.

Jennings says his house survived the Valley Fire of 2015 because it was not made of wood. When he’d built it five years earlier, Jennings instead used something called RSG 3-D panels—blocks of foam insulation held inside a steel grid, fastened together, and covered with concrete. The structure is sturdier, less susceptible to termites, and less flammable than wood, he says. “Wood houses are just so vulnerable and leaky,” says Jennings, who is building a second house using RSG panels for his mother in Sonoma County, near where the LNU Lightning Complex Fires in 2020 burned 363,000 acres over the course of six weeks.

As the U.S. West approaches the 2021 fire season with even drier conditions than those that kicked off last year’s record-breaking blazes, breaking up with wood makes sense, but the U.S. remains stubbornly attached to timber. It’s one of the few places in the world where wood is the dominant material used in new-home construction—90% of homes built in 2019 were wood-framed, according to the National Association of Home Builders. Even as scientists emphasize the importance of trees in capturing carbon and slowing climate change, the U.S. uses more forest products than any other country, not just for construction but for furniture, flooring and paper. Wood plays a role in American folklore, housing Abe Lincoln and employing Paul Bunyan.

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