Deadly Fairfax Fire Shows Growing Peril

With house and land prices continuing to rise, cluster houses on smaller lots often are more affordable. Linda Canadiate, for example, said she loves her house in a new subdivision in Woodbridge so much that she treasures a framed photo of herself and her family next to the "sold" sign. She enjoys sitting in her rocking chair in the setting sun and saying hello to her neighbors.

She doesn't have to raise her voice. Next door is just 11.9 feet away.

"Kissin' close," Canadiate said.

She said she doesn't smoke and takes other precautions against fires, such as storing flammable materials in the garage. But she also has to worry about whether her neighbors are equally careful.

"They're building them too fast and too close," she said.

The home-building industry emphasized that improvements are costly. "We can build a house that will never burn down," said Jeff Inks, who monitors housing codes for the National Association of Homebuilders. "Maybe Donald Trump or the average billionaire could afford it, but the average guy couldn't."

Cozy neighborhoods where houses are closer together also are part of the "new urbanism" movement that aims to build suburban villages where people can walk instead of drive.

"People are interested in having less yard and living in a more compact environment," said Sherman Patrick, Prince William's zoning administrator. "It's a desire to provide an alternative for townhouses and a new urban design that people like. The challenge is how do we allow and encourage new designs for usable open space and at the same time not run afoul of the building code?"

In some cases, townhouses are safer than close-together single-family houses, because attached townhouses are required to be built with firewalls separating the units. "We'd be better off with two townhouses because you don't have that air and space separation," said W. Keith Brower Jr., deputy fire chief in Loudoun County.

How close is too close is a question without a scientific answer. But the subject is of interest to federal officials. For the fire test scheduled for today, National Institute of Standards and Technology scientists in Gaithersburg have built two average "homes" six feet apart. Each has a wood frame covered with a weather wrap, such as Tyvek, and is finished with vinyl siding. One will be furnished with a sofa, table, armchair, wall paneling and carpet.

"Then we're going to start an ordinary living room fire, which will break out through the window, and then we're going to measure the time needed to get the second unit involved," said David D. Evans, an institute engineer.

It shouldn't take long. A 1988 Canadian study of two similar structures 5.9 feet apart showed that it took 4 minutes and 50 seconds for the second house to ignite. Thirty seconds later, the second house was fully engulfed.

Evans has studied the fire response at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, and has researched the behavior of wildfires when they hit residential communities. He said it is unlikely that a single "safe" distance between houses will be determined.

"That's a sharp line, and physics is rarely that sharply defined," Evans said. Variables come into play, including materials that compose the house, its design and how long it takes a firetruck to reach the house.

Scott, also a former Prince William fire marshal, said he has been told that he is scaring people. But he said that is not important.

"All I want is for them to live safely," Scott said, "and for the people who are building these things to know the risk.''