There’s no shortage of advice from experts and institutions about how to prepare a home for wildfire, ranging from straightforward measures like removing flammable brush from outdoor spaces to high-tech (and largely unproven) tactics like retracting the structure into an underground bunker. Yet nearly all of this advice is aimed at people who own a single-family house.
Meanwhile, those living in multi-family dwellings, such as apartment and condominium buildings, are largely left out of conversations about wildfire preparedness. But as events like the January 2025 conflagrations in Southern California have shown, multi-family buildings are increasingly at risk. Although single-family residences were disproportionately affected during these two major fires, 244 multi-family buildings were reported to be destroyed or suffering major damage.
Renters can be especially vulnerable to wildfire losses because they often have lower incomes and limited insurance options. And without property ownership, they have limited power to take preventative action.
Research and communication from wildfire experts and fire safety organizations is lagging behind the growing danger these fires pose to the entire public. For instance, online advice from the Federal Emergency Management Agency detailing how to prepare homes for wildfires relies overwhelmingly on the assumption of single-family houses, with tips suggesting cleaning roofs and gutters or pruning trees—actions renters typically cannot take in an apartment building. But wildfire experts say there are ways to close this gap in planning—and that multi-family housing can actually play a role in keeping communities safer.
Fire and engineering experts know there are differences between how a fire can grow and spread within single-family and multi-family buildings during wildfire. Still, due to limited research, many of the specific differences aren’t yet clear.
“Once you have multiple compartments and multiple stories, the fire itself starts to grow and affect the structure differently,” says M.Z. Naser, a researcher at Clemson University with expertise in structural fire engineering. “Knowing more about how [fire] behaves in larger structures versus smaller structures would be something important.”
Even though 2025 broke global records for wildfire-related costs and damage, there’s a lack of funding for research to understand and prevent fire damage. “The amount of funds we get is . . . I’m going to say ‘small,’ for the scale of the problem that we’re facing,” says Naser. To make matters worse, the Trump Administration is currently considering further budget cuts for wildfire science. The plans include closing and consolidating wildfire research facilities nationwide, in an effort to cut costs and streamline operations.
According to Deepak Sharma, a mechanical engineer at Oregon State University, researching fire in larger structures is harder and more expensive than investigating the effects on smaller homes, which is partly why it hasn’t been prioritized. Studying the impacts of wildfire on buildings often involves building a structure, then setting it on fire. Research on multi-family housing is limited because it’s more expensive—and dangerous—to build and then burn large structures, as opposed to smaller model houses. “It’s a complex problem. That’s why nobody has done this,” says Sharma. “Most of the wildfire research and understanding have been limited to small single-family houses, and then they are extrapolated to these larger buildings.”
Meanwhile, as new communities are built in undeveloped areas, people are moving closer to wildfire zones. At the same time, growing populations mean more multi-family housing gets built. But while the increase in housing stock can improve affordability and promote effective land use, this new construction often uses flammable materials like timber. “The problem is not really that we’re building multi-houses,” says Naser. “The problem, in my eyes, is we’re not building it properly.”
According to Naser, it’s wiser to build with alternatives like concrete, which can be more expensive but is noncombustible. Recent research led by Sharma also suggests that taller buildings create more embers when a fire begins, which can result in fires spreading to other nearby structures. But this risk is reduced by building with concrete or other noncombustible materials. Removing bushes and other vegetation from around buildings is another proven way to prevent fire from spreading. But tenants in multi-family housing often lack the authority to remove plants, making local policies that require action from property owners critical. In fire-prone parts of California, for example, property owners are legally required to manage the vegetation near their buildings. While renters can take steps like reducing clutter in shared spaces, or choosing balcony furniture that’s metal instead of wood, the larger responsibilities toward keeping a building fire safe fall to building owners. “The tenants have a significant social vulnerability,” says Sharma, “and also their financial capabilities are different from the owners.”
Newer multi-family buildings are often required by the International Building Code and some state laws to have features like sprinkler systems, which help prevent fire from spreading—at least when it starts internally. “Generally speaking, newer built multi-housing is a really safe place to be should an interior fire occur,” says Michele Steinberg, wildfire division director of the nonprofit National Fire Protection Association. When that fire comes from outside, however, delayed detection, erratic weather, and blocked escape routes can cause imminent risk. “[With] exterior fire, I feel like they’re just as vulnerable as single-family homes. It’s hard to know because we don’t have enough data on that specific problem.”
In towns and cities where multi-family housing is more common, people may not even realize that a wildfire could reach them. “My observation is that people are frequently surprised that fire can do what it does, and their mental model of a wildfire is somewhere out in the woods,” says Steinberg. She suggests that everyone prepare for fire with an evacuation plan and a “go-kit” packed with essentials, which could include medical supplies, copies of important documents, and a few days of food and water. She also recommends renter’s insurance, which is often relatively affordable and can cover damage to tenants’ possessions in the event of a fire.
Knowing how to get out of a building is crucial, too, especially in larger buildings with many people and fewer exits between them. “I will definitely recommend tenants be educated about the evacuation plan and things like that,” says Sharma, “because that is more important for them, while owners take care of the property itself.”
Should a building burn down, recovery may be especially difficult for those in multi-family housing. When that building is lost to the flames, an entire community is disrupted—people may find themselves scattered from neighbors they once depended on, with no clear way to bring their community back together. “Just that many more people in a single building failure is really challenging in terms of how you recover,” says Steinberg. “I think what a lot of people don’t read about [or] hear about is the social damage that’s done.”
Much like health care, the U.S. government’s approach to wildfire is more about reaction than prevention—which Naser says leads to more buildings devastated by wildfire. According to Naser, wildfire preparation is an investment in the future that’s well worth the costs. “To invest means it’s okay to spend a little bit more on proper designs and buildings and [the] latest research,” he says.
Well-designed multi-family housing can help reduce the risks of wildfire. Increased density means more people can be housed without the community expanding into fire-prone wilderness areas. “These large housing buildings, they can be a game changer when we are thinking about developing new communities, because they can [house] more people over a smaller area,” says Sharma.
Research, policy, and education on wildfire in all types of housing can help keep everybody safer. Steinberg notes that there should also be a greater sense of responsibility—from individuals and from local governments that could help protect vulnerable people.
“There’s this sense that wildfire is this huge problem, and yet people feel like, ‘Well, there's nothing I can do about that. If it’s that big of a problem, somebody must be taking care of it,’ ” she says. “We fall into this trap of thinking someone else is dealing with it, when in fact, sure, fire departments deal with it when it happens, but they’re not the ones responsible for preparing the home and the neighborhood to withstand the fire. It’s the people that live there. It’s the people that own the property. It’s the people that live, work, and play in those areas that really do have an important role to play.”