08/05/2026
In the early 2000s, wildfires destroyed about 3% of the California homes they reached; by 2020, that number was 18%.
The original wildfire code did real work against the kinds of fires we had in the 90s. Where PHNX has been outspoken is what’s happened since: the way WUI code keeps evolving isn’t addressing the kinds of fires we have now, and in some cases may be making homes more vulnerable, not less. A new UC Merced study backs up exactly that concern; today’s fires are hotter, faster, and bigger than the ones the current code updates are still chasing.
The hardening numbers make the point sharper: 48% of hardened homes survived some of California’s largest fires, against 20% of unhardened ones. Real protection, when the code gets it right. The problem PHNX keeps raising is that its current direction isn’t built for the way fires burn in the 21st century.
That’s the gap the patent-pending PHNX Longspan™ Structural System was built to close. Wood-free, Type I noncombustible construction, built for the kinds of fires we have now instead of the ones code-minimum hardening keeps chasing after the fact.
Source: UC Merced (Mukesh Kumar) and USGS (Amanda Carlson), via the LA Times, 8/1/26.