While authorities still don’t know what sparked the deadly fires in the Los Angeles area, they do know one clear way the flames have spread: embers.
Experts say most homes destroyed by wildfires aren’t overcome by a racing wall of flames, but rather burn after being ignited by airborne embers.
An ember is a piece of burning debris that can range in size from a tiny speck to a larger chunk. Once it becomes airborne, the more technical term is firebrand, said James Urban, an assistant professor in the Department of Fire Protection Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
“If it’s a wildland fire, it’s typically pieces of wood or other types of vegetation that are burning,” he said. “But when you have a fire that’s burning through an urban area, it can be vegetation, it can be pieces of the house, it can be almost anything that burns.”
Winds blow embers from the Eaton Fire in Altadena, Calif., Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025.
Nic Coury/AP
While many people might have seen stray embers rise from a campfire and even had one land on them, the embers involved in wildfires are drastically different, said Anne Cope, chief engineer at the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety.
“Those embers can travel for miles, and it’s often the neighborhoods that are closer to the wildlands that get inundated with just loads and loads – just showered with embers,” she said.
Wind allows embers to burn harder and release more energy, becoming a more potent ignition source, Urban said. The firebrands then accumulate and sort of work together, gathering between the slats of wood fences or in shrubbery and igniting new fires.
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Publish date : 2025-01-14 01:23:00
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