Blend believes fire resiliency is a critical consideration during the design and planning phase. With our mass timber system, it's possible to construct our diaphragm of SIPs in a fire resistant material, helping owners escape safely, or preserve the house entirely.
Wildfire doesn’t play favorites.
A fast-moving wildfire tore through the area around Split Lake, Manitoba. When it passed, the surrounding landscape was scorched. The Tataskweyak Transition Centre, a 9,766 sq ft residential development built for Tataskweyak Cree Nation, remained virtually unscathed.
To some, this may appear as dumb luck, but the building’s envelope was built with a magnesium cement panel system engineered to resist fire, not just slow it down. That’s the standard we build to at Blend, on every home, because we’ve seen the devastation that wildfire can cause, and we want to be part of the solution.
Why Altadena changed how we think about this
fab_01 started as a collaboration with Feldman Architecture on a custom residence in Carmel Valley. Then the Eaton and Palisades fires tore through Altadena and the Pacific Palisades, and the project became something else.
With more than 16,000 homes gone almost overnight, it was pure devastation. The rebuild will take years, and there is no guarantee this won’t happen again. Insurance companies in this area are limiting their coverage.
A fast rebuild that burns the same way the last one did isn’t the answer. That’s the part we’ve been working to change.
What’s actually in the wall
Fire resilient panels are part of every Blend home, and we deliver them in partnership with ZS2 Technologies, a building envelope manufacturer built around magnesium cement, a non-combustible material system, rather than the wood-frame-plus-cladding method.
Our full envelope, walls and roof, is 1-hour fire rated as standard. It isn’t something we develop in preconstruction or an option you add later, it comes with the ZS2 TechPanel. For sites that call for more, we can increase the assembly to a 2-hour rating. The rating isn’t a finish applied after the fact, it’s part of the panel itself, engineered in from the start.
The way of the future in climate sensitive areas
Insurers are already adjusting how they underwrite homes in fire-prone regions, and building codes are following. What counts as a reasonable material choice today is trending toward what gets required tomorrow.
We’d rather get ahead of that shift than react to it. Building fire resistance into the envelope as standard means our clients aren’t caught off guard when the code changes, because we’re already building to it.
When to step up to 2-hour
Every Blend home starts at a 1-hour rating. Whether a site needs more depends on proximity to wildland urban interface zones, local building code, insurance considerations, and a client’s own risk tolerance.
This is a conversation we have early during the design phase. Because the rating is tied to the panel assembly itself, stepping up to 2-hour is a decision that gets made alongside the rest of the structural design, and our partnership with ZS2 will ensure this is a smooth process for our clients.
Blend’s approach
Wildfires are more common than ever, and there are ways we can be part of the solution. Every Blend home comes with a fully 1-hour fire rated envelope, walls and roof, as our base standard. It isn’t something we develop in preconstruction, and it isn’t negotiable. For sites that need more, we can increase to a 2-hour rating. That’s true whether you’re rebuilding on a fire-affected lot or building somewhere that hasn’t been tested yet.
If fire resiliency is part of what you’re weighing for your project, we’re happy to walk through what the right assembly looks like for your site.
