Three months after the Lahaina Fire tore through Maui in 2023, a green-painted home with white trim stood largely unscathed. Across the street, a house was reduced to ash.
The green home’s survival likely wasn’t due to a fire-resistant roof or well-watered lawn. The house withstood the catastrophe because it was built 120 feet away from the nearby home that did ignite, shielding it from flames and radiant heat.
New research on the 2023 Lahaina Fire found that the distance between buildings was one of the most important factors in determining their fate. That was the case even for houses with fire-resistant roofs, vents and windows — a conclusion that suggests retrofitting homes is not enough to protect them.
“What I saw in Lahaina is structure separation matters,” said Faraz Hedayati, a lead engineer with the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety, an industry-funded research group that published the report earlier this month.
