Need to KnowWildfires Are Here to Stay—Here’s How Designers Are Planning for ThemDesigners tasked with building (and rebuilding) in wildfire-prone areas share their strategies

By Molly Wilcox

November 12, 2021

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On the morning of December 14, 2017, flames crept over the desert-dry Ojai mountains, edged forward by the Santa Ana winds. The Thomas Fire, as it was later named, consumed homes, schools, and community buildings across the region, adding to the carnage ravaged by the Tubbs Fire earlier that year. Since then, the situation has only grown more dire: 2020 marked the worst wildfire season in California history, with burns covering nearly four percent of the state’s total land area. As this new reality settles in, and thousands begin to rebuild, a common strategy has taken root across the state: fire-resistant design.

The rebuilt Ojai Valley School, designed by Frederick Fisher and Partners. The original buildings for the school burned down during the Thomas Fire.

Architects Fred Fisher and Takashige Ikawa are among the designers leading this effort. Recently, their firm Frederick Fisher and Partners was tapped to rebuild the Ojai Valley School, a private academy that had been reduced to rubble during the Thomas Fire. Built on a picturesque, 200-acre property surrounded by desert canyon hills, manzanita trees, and the wild grasses typical of the southern California mountains, the school needed to reemerge defensible against future fires, while still respecting the natural landscape.

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“Our design approach was, ‘how can we make a playful, fun layout?’” Ikawa explains. That called for an unconventional process. “We flipped over kids’ blocks,” he says, with the team imagining how those volumes could break “out of those static box shapes, how they all can come together to make a playful expression and make a sense of fun and joy.”

The Ojai Valley School consists of three major building clusters: science and tech classrooms, a student dorm, and a library. The new construction of each features an internal outdoor space, such as a courtyard or breezeway, which helps to break up the structure, and prevent the fast spread of flames in the event of a disaster. Steel frames, stucco walls, and flat roofs with minimal overhangs also help to stifle flames.

“The original building caught fire from the triangular shape of the traditional roof,” which concealed embers, Ikawa says. “The flammable material inside of the roof attic created a big fire.”

The school also now generates its own source of power. During the last blaze, Ikawa says that the power snuffed out at the school as firefighters fought to quash flames; now that the school is operating almost 90% independently, firefighters will be able to tap into additional power if needed.

A home in the West Hollywood hills designed by SweisKloss.

Photo: Chang Kyun Kim Photography

Abeer Sweis, of the Santa Monica–based firm SweisKloss, is similarly tackling wildfire-resistant design, with a focus on single-family homes. She points out that many times, clients don’t even realize they’re getting a resilient house—for all their strength against fire, they sacrifice nothing in the way of optics and beauty. Like Fisher and Ikawa, Sweis deploys materials like stucco, as well as modern vents and steel frames, to bulk up each building’s defense.

Part of this resiliency strategy is also based in managing how fire can potentially spread to neighboring homes. “I think with climate change, and all of the increased fires that we’ve had, it just doesn’t make sense to put all of those structures at risk,” she says. “Once one structure goes up, it’s dangerous to the others that surround it. If each person that lives in a high fire zone takes care of their own home, then you’re less likely to burn up an entire neighborhood.”

Sweis explains that one of the most important parts of their designs hinges on incorporating special heat-sensitive vents in the roofs that can close and stop the spread of flames. (Traditional versions can actually perpetuate and accelerate fires.)

One of her client’s homes in Malibu, which endured a fire not long ago, is proof positive that the strategy works. “The entire house survived, except for the garage, because the contractor who built it at the time put in a regular vent in the garage instead of putting in the vent that we specified,” Sweis says.

Born in Jordan, and a Southern California resident since age 10, Sweis remembers seeing fires creep over nearby hills during her adolescence. As a professional designer, protecting structures from fire became ingrained in her process early on. With a new generation growing up and facing worsening fires each year, one can imagine—and hope—that there are many more like her ready to take on the same challenge.

The terrace of the SweisKloss-designed home in the West Hollywood hills.

Photo: Chang Kyun Kim Photography