It seems that public agencies are finally acknowledging that trees are not always causing homes to burn in wildfires in the WUI:

New York Times: Many California Trees Survived Wildfires: LA FIRES (LA Times article March 21, 2025): “In reality, trees are fairly fire resistant, and many will likely recover, resprout and stick around for years. Even some non-native species that are known for being flammable, like eucalyptus trees, still linger.”

 “The trees survived because they are filled with water: The roots draw moisture from soil and transport it through branches to its leaves. When the fires erupted in January, trees in Los Angeles had been especially nourished after two previous rainy winters. All that water makes burning a living tree akin to trying to start a campfire with wet logs, Dr. Jacobsen said.”

Our homes are more flammable than trees. They are made from dried out wood, petrol by-products such as paints and plastics. Keep in mind a tree is less flammable than your home as it contains a large percent of water. Our best defense is home hardening.

Paradise, California
The Camp fire burned homes but left trees standing. The science behind the fire’s path. LA Times Article, Nov 18, 2018

Fires that spread from house to house generate a force of their own. Embers, broadcast by the wind, find dry leaves, igniting one structure then another, and the cycle is perpetuated block after block. Break that cycle and the fire quits, and destruction can be minimized.

Most telling were the trees. Most of the pines that sheltered this community still had their canopies intact. The needles, yellowed from the intense heat, were not burned — evidence that the winds that morning had pushed the fire along so fast it never had a chance to rise into the trees. But as a surface fire, it lit up the homes that lay in its path.