Home / The Proof
Show me the evidence
Does any of this actually work? Here's the research.
Every recommendation on this site traces back to fire-lab experiments, controlled burns, and government research. Below is what was tested, who tested it, what they measured — and, just as importantly, what the evidence does not claim.
1 · The foundational science
Most homes ignite from embers and the fuels right next to them.
This is the finding that everything else rests on, and it came from decades of deliberate experiments.
The Home Ignition Zone concept
Retired Forest Service fire scientist Jack Cohen developed the Home Ignition Zone in the late 1990s after experimental research into how homes ignite from radiant heat and embers. Using laboratory and field experiments, modelling, and post-fire disaster investigations, he identified the limited area immediately around a structure that principally determines whether it ignites in an extreme wildfire.
Cohen's work underpins the Firewise program (U.S.) and the home ignition zone used by FireSmart in Canada. Selected research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2015).
Embers cause the majority of losses
Radiant heat was once considered the primary driver of structure loss in the interface. Multiple investigations over recent decades have since found ember transport to be directly or indirectly responsible for the majority of structure losses — a conclusion echoed across studies from Cohen & Butler (1998) through to more recent post-fire analyses.
This is the basis for FireSmart Canada's figure that roughly 90% of homes lost to wildfire are ignited by embers.
Radiant ignition is a short-range threat
Cohen's thermal-radiation and ignition modelling estimated when burning vegetation can ignite a structure based on flame characteristics and distance. The results indicate ignitions from flame radiation are unlikely beyond roughly 40 metres of a structure — which is precisely why the Home Ignition Zone concentrates on the closest 30 metres.
Cohen & Butler, "Modeling Potential Structure Ignitions from Flame Radiation Exposure."
FireSmart priority zones, evaluated
FPInnovations — Canada's forest-sector research institute — has studied and documented vegetation management and the effectiveness of FireSmart priority zones for structure protection, including fuel-treatment case studies in interface settings across the country.
FPInnovations Wildfire Operations, "Evaluating the effectiveness of FireSmart priority zones for structure protection."
2 · The sprinkler evidence (Canadian)
Wildfire agencies deploy sprinklers — and researchers have burned structures to measure how well they work.
Sprinkler protection isn't a consumer novelty. It's an operational wildfire tactic that's been studied under controlled-burn conditions in Canada.
Agencies use sprinklers across Canada
A state-of-practice review of water-delivery (sprinkler) systems in the wildland–urban interface confirms sprinklers are used to protect structures during interface events across Canada, deployed by wildfire agencies in conjunction with forestry equipment to wet fuels and structures ahead of and during a fire's arrival.
FPInnovations / Forest Resource Improvement Association of Alberta, "Sprinkler use in North America — a state-of-practice review."
Controlled crown-fire trials
FPInnovations studied sprinklers and aqueous gel for structure protection during experimental crown fires in the Northwest Territories, investigating set-up time and resources, the water volumes used, structural damage, and the temperatures structures experienced.
Walkinshaw & Ault (2008, 2009); FPInnovations, "Use of sprinklers and aqueous gel for structure protection from wildfire."
Structures burned, on purpose, to test placement
At the Fort Providence Wildfire Experimental Site in 2024, a research plot was ignited to test sprinkler effectiveness on three structures — documenting how different sprinkler placements and water volumes protected them when subjected to an intense surface fire.
FPInnovations, "British Columbia Wildfire Service Sprinkler Research — Fort Providence Wildfire Experimental Site 2024."
The "humidity dome" is real
Beyond simply wetting surfaces, sprinkler research has examined the local relative-humidity dome a sprinkler creates around a structure — the same humidity effect described on our equipment page, studied as part of efforts to design better wildfire sprinklers.
FPInnovations, "Design and evaluation of a new wildfire sprinkler."
Used at real fires
Structure-protection sprinklers aren't only a test-site idea. FPInnovations documented their deployment during the 2017 Kenow fire in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta — a real interface event where sprinkler protection was part of the structure-defence effort.
FPInnovations, "Case study — Kenow Fire, Alberta, 2017, structure protection in Waterton Lakes National Park."
The same components crews use
The homeowner packages sold by Flash Wildfire Services use professional-grade components — the same pumps, forestry fittings, and sprinkler heads deployed by wildfire crews and municipal services. The WASP gutter-mount sprinkler is in service with over 200 fire departments across North America.
Flash Wildfire Services product documentation.
3 · What the evidence does not claim
Honesty is part of being a real resource.
Good preparation dramatically improves a home's odds. It does not make any structure fireproof, and we won't pretend otherwise.
- No guarantee of survival. No home-hardening measure, defensible-space treatment, or sprinkler system guarantees a structure will survive a wildfire. Extreme fire behaviour can overwhelm any single defence.
- Layers, working together. The research supports a combination — hardened structure, managed Home Ignition Zone, and active protection — far more than any one measure alone.
- Conditions and set-up matter. Sprinkler effectiveness depends on placement, water volume, pressure, and being deployed in time. Studies measure these variables precisely because they change the outcome.
- Your authority comes first. Evidence informs preparation; it never overrides an evacuation order or the direction of your local fire service.
Every source above is listed in full on the About & Sources page so you can read the originals.
Read the science, then prepare with it.
Start with your home and yard — the measures with the deepest evidence behind them — then add the active layer you control.