Fire Safety Design and Construction Considerations for Sustainable Residential Structures

Within the past five years, new codes, policies and recommendations for construction and landscaping have been adopted to improve the sustainability of buildings and their operations. Residential buildings are now being designed and constructed with the goal of achieving sustainability - minimal impact on the environmental, very low to zero energy usage, use of sustainable materials, etc. Many building codes and other groups are promulgating "green" building codes. These changes to the design and construction standards for buildings offer the potential to increase building performance and decrease impact on the environment, but may also include, fire and safety challenges that have unintended consequences including increased property damage compromised related to life safety. Understanding and applying both wildfire safety and sustainable or "Green" principles can be complex and often conflicting. Impacted stakeholders include residents, business, land managers, landscape architects, landscape designers, foresters, fire authorities, building industry, planners and policy-makers. This paper presents and summarizes the information collected to support the future development of a systematic method for evaluating building designs that integrates the consideration of fire hazards as well as other hazard risk factors. This includes a review of current building and development codes, and design guides, an analysis of environmental factors affecting the potential of fire for residential structures, and conclusions regarding sustainable design and construction fire strategies.