The Camp Fire ignited on the morning of November 8, 2018, in Pulga, CA. Fanned by high winds, the fire spread quickly through wildlands and burned into the wildland-urban interface (WUI) communities of Concow, Paradise, and Magalia, CA. Within hours, thousands of structures were destroyed as over 30,000 residents evacuated the area. The Camp Fire burned for 18 days, consumed 62,053 ha (153,336 ac), destroyed or damaged 19,531 structures, and resulted in 85 fatalities. As part of the NIST Disaster and Failure Studies Program, a reconnaissance team was deployed to Butte County, CA to collect any perishable data, along with preliminary field data which would be used to assess the need and ability to fully reconstruct this fire. A multiagency team consisting of NIST, US Forest Service, and Federal Emergency Management Agency members worked closely with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) incident command. Data collected from two deployments, totaling 18 days in the field, were used in a preliminary assessment of the incident to determine the need for a more comprehensive case study research effort. The reconnaissance deployment team determined that the Camp Fire was unique in terms of the extreme fire behavior, losses, evacuation and notification challenges. Based on the unique opportunities to better understand the behavior and response to wildland-urban interface fires, and the availability of data to support in-depth studies, the team recommended that a more comprehensive study be undertaken.
