Today, nearly 50 million Americans live in the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI)—zones where wildfire meets suburbia, and ordinary wildfires can escalate into full-blown conflagrations. In these extreme events, homes and their contents become fuel, driving structure-to-structure fire spread and releasing a toxic mix of chemicals far more hazardous than those from natural biomass burns. Heavy metals, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and other pollutants are propelled into the air via contaminated ash and smoke, posing serious health risks to first responders and residents alike. In this episode of Disaster Discussions, we spotlight a groundbreaking research initiative led by IBHS collaborators from UC Berkeley and funded by the California Air Resources Board (CARB). For the first time, scientists are quantifying the emissions produced during large-scale conflagrations—work that’s reshaping our understanding of air pollution, public health, and climate resilience. This month's guests include: Dr. Nathan Kreisberg, Senior Research Scientist for Aerosol Dynamics Inc, Dr. Allen Goldstein, Professor for the Dept of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Dept of Environmental Science, Policy, & Management, and Michael Milazzo, Graduate Student Researcher & PHD Candidate, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering.

Wildland-Urban Interface fires are among the most destructive wildfire events, transforming into conflagration scenarios that result in catastrophic losses of homes, infrastructure, and lives. This episode of Disaster Discussions dives into cutting-edge work with research partners at UC Berkeley based on findings from the IBHS Structure-to-Structure Fire Spread experiment. The discussion focuses on looking at how wildfires spread into urban communities, exploring how the researchers are improving fire modeling and gathering real-world data to help improve fire modeling tools that can help predict and prevent these urban fire disasters.   This episode's guests are Dr. Michael Gollner, UC Berkeley Associate Professor and Deb Faculty Fellow from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Dr. Wuquan Cui, Postdoc at UC Berkeley.

In this episode of Disaster Discussions, host Rachael Penton Gauthier explores KB Home’s groundbreaking Dixon Trail development in Escondido, CA—the first neighborhood in the U.S. to receive a provisional Wildfire Prepared Neighborhood™ designation, with every home in the development constructed to the Wildfire Prepared Home Plus level-IBHS's most rigorous wildfire resilience standard. KB Home’s President and Regional General Manager Steve Ruffner shares the bold design choices and strategic cost trade-offs that made this resilience possible, as well as feedback from residents who have made this neighborhood their home and saved on insurance in the process. The episode also dives into the policy, planning, and insurability hurdles builders face and outlines KB Home’s forward-looking commitment to wildfire-resilient construction.

What happens when a storm meets smart construction choices? Mark Fowler from the Alabama Department of Insurance and Dr. Lawrence Powell from the University of Alabama's Center for Risk and Insurance Research join Disaster Discussions to unpack a groundbreaking new report on IBHS FORTIFIED Home construction performance during Hurricane Sally- a strong category two storm that struck the highest concentration of FORTIFIED homes in the nation. This episode dives into how homes built or retrofitted to FORTIFIED standards significantly outperformed both traditional construction homes and those built to municipal building codes—sustaining less damage and saving homeowners and insurers millions of dollars.

Stormchaser Josh Morgerman joins the podcast to discuss the 20-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, his FORTIFIED Hurricane House, and his worldwide chasing adventures.

Every summer IBHS welcomes a diverse and talented group of interns and fellows from across the country to work closely with our world-class engineers, scientists, and communications professionals. The scope of their projects is wide- assisting with full-scale research, developing state of the art instrumentation and electrical solutions, running lab equipment to conduct research, designing and constructing building systems, and much more. Most of the participants are students studying IT, engineering, meteorology, or communications in some form- spanning from undergraduates to postdocs. Some of these students even return to IBHS later in their careers. We learn more about these interns and fellows and what they learned this summer at IBHS in a two-part special.

Every summer IBHS welcomes a diverse and talented group of interns and fellows from across the country to work closely with our world-class engineers, scientists, and communications professionals. The scope of their projects is wide- assisting with full-scale research, developing state of the art instrumentation and electrical solutions, running lab equipment to conduct research, designing and constructing building systems, and much more. Most of the participants are students studying IT, engineering, meteorology, or communications in some form- spanning from undergraduates to postdocs. Some of these students even return to IBHS later in their careers. We learn more about these interns and fellows and what they learned this summer at IBHS in a two-part special.

The In-Situ Collaborative Experiment for the Collection of Hail In the Plains (ICECHIP) wraps up after 6 weeks of scientific storm chasing in pursuit of hail-producing thunderstorms.

In this episode of Disaster Discusssions host Rachael Penton Gauthier sits down with Geotrek's Dr. "Hurricane Hal" Needham to discuss his three-step process for disaster risk assessment.

6 weeks, 15 institutions, 4 international partners, and as many hailstorms as possible- that's the mission of ICECHIP.

Research Project Scientist Jake Sorber joins the podcast to discuss all things hail- including why hail is a loss driver, a case study of a significant hail event in Rock Hill, SC, and a look ahead to the historic ICECHIP project.

This episode highlights the development of the new Wildfire Prepared Neighborhood technical standard- the first and only science-based standard that aims to meaningfully reduce the probability of a built-environment conflagration in the neighborhoods where it is applied.

In this episode of Disaster Discussions we're joined by Dr. Geoff Boughton, Adjunct Associate Professor at the James Cook University Cyclone Testing Station and Dr. Korah Parackal, IBHS Research Engineer and Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the James Cook University Cyclone Testing Station.

In this episode of Disaster Discussions we discuss the extreme conditions that allowed the Eaton and Palisades wildfires to transition into devastating urban conflagrations that destroyed thousands of structures in LA county, as well as insights from IBHS's post-disaster investigation of the events.

In this episode of Disaster Discussions we discuss the extreme conditions that allowed the Eaton and Palisades wildfires to transition into devastating urban conflagrations that destroyed thousands of structures in LA county, as well as insights from IBHS's post-disaster investigation of the events.

In the first episode of 2025, we take a look back at some of the memorable moments from Disaster Discussion in 2024.

In this episode of Disaster Discussions we sit down with WCNC Chief Meteorologist Brad Panovich and IBHS Lead Research Meteorologist Dr. Ian Giammanco to discuss the communications challenges of messaging for historic weather events such as Hurricane Helene.

In this episode of Disaster Discussions we discuss how small business owners and commercial property owners can use IBHS science to help make their businesses and buildings more resilient in the face of severe weather.

In this episode host Rachael Penton Gauthier sits down with IBHS General Counsel Michael Newman and Public Policy Associate Manuela Ekowo, who together make up the IBHS public policy team. Learn how they're working to advance science-based public action to build resiliency for homeowners, businesses, and communities.

In this episode of Disaster Discussions, host Rachael Penton Gauthier sits down with the IBHS wildfire research team to discuss insights from research projects past and present.