EmberScape

WUI (wildland-urban interface) prevention planner for fire marshals, prevention officers, and WUI planners. HydroScape 4D's fire cousin.

The demo thesis, which must remain true:

This neighborhood fails ember attack even though every house has a 5-foot gravel strip.

Five feet of gravel is not a product. IBHS / NFPA home-ignition-zone thinking is. Vents, wood fences as wicks, decks, eaves, juniper against the wall, continuous canopy to the lot line, untreated shakes - those are why house 12 still fails.

Not a homeowner 15-minute gadget as the primary UX (a resident brief is a secondary print view). Not counter-terrorism. Not a lighting tool: there is no ignition picker, no "light it here," no multi-ignition attack planner. Landscape ignition is a weather plus fuel scenario (a wildland fire already burning upwind).

Jobs

1. Fire marshal / prevention officer: ember-cast on a subdivision, ranked hardening queue, inspection list mapped to NFPA 1140/1144 and typical WUI codes, printable AHJ brief.
2. Planner: where a cheap fuel break or a vegetation ordinance beats staffing another engine company. Investment comparison, labeled as screening, not an ISO rating.
3. GitHub reviewer: one demo community, no API key, full path in under two minutes. Query string demo=1 jumps into the canned community with Place completed.

Guided path

Place, Fuel and weather, Ember attack, Hardening queue, Invest, Brief.

Demo community

Ridgecrest Estates HOA, unincorporated El Dorado County, California (Camino / Pollock Pines analog). Invented HOA, real-feeling place. 32 lots on an about 18 percent south-facing slope. Mixed 1990s wood-siding and newer stucco. HOA required 5-ft gravel in 2019. Six named archetypes that fail for different reasons:

• 12 Cedar Ridge Ct: quarter-inch gable vents plus open eaves. 5-ft gravel does not save house 12.
• 8 Manzanita Ct: wood privacy fence attached to the siding (wick)
• 19 Ridgeview Ln: juniper planted in the gravel against stucco
• 3 Ponderosa Way: untreated wood shakes
• 24 Eagle Crest Dr: elevated deck, firewood and needles underneath
• 15 Oak Hollow Rd: untreated shed 18 ft from the house

What it actually does

• Place: canned demo, or a place name. Nominatim is optional and degrades to the demo analog with no key.
• Fuel: Scott/Burgan FBFM40 labels (TU5, SH5, GS2, TL3, NB1) as used in LANDFIRE products. We do not load LANDFIRE.
• Weather: three NWS-like presets (Santa Ana / Diablo analog, monsoon dry thunderstorm, normal July afternoon) plus sliders. Not a live RAWS pull.
• Ember attack: canvas 4D screening - lofted embers from a ridge fire already burning, structure-by-structure ignition probability as screening. Cameras: orbit, street, roof/eave, fence-wick.
• Queue: ranked home plus HOA/AHJ actions mapped to IBHS 0-5 ft, NFPA 1140 Ch. 24-26 / NFPA 1144 5.3.3-5.3.4, ICC IWUIC 2024 504.10, Firewise HIZ. Hydrant spacing is context, not a hydraulic model.
• Invest: fuel break vs engine company vs ordinance vs home-hardening blitz. Regional cost bands, not bids.
• Brief: printable AHJ / insurance / HOA dossier, plus a lighter resident brief. Print CSS is paper, not a dark screenshot.

Run

See package.json scripts: install, then the dev script. Production uses the build script. Open the app with query demo=1 so Place is already completed (Ridgecrest Estates, Santa Ana/Diablo analog preselected).

Limits

• Not LANDFIRE 30 m, not WRF-SFIRE, not BEHAVE, not CFD.
• Spotting distance and EMC are labeled illustrations.
• Structure ignition probabilities are a rule-based home-ignition-zone score, not a validated structure-response model.
• Cost bands are regional screening ranges, not contractor bids.
• Hydrant spacing (about 520 ft in the demo) is inspection context, not ISO and not a water-supply calculation.
• California Zone 0 was approved by the Board of Forestry on 19 August 2026; confirm Office of Administrative Law / Secretary of State effective date before citing as enforceable.
• Nominatim is optional. Core path is offline.
• DEMO community is fictional.

Stack

Vite, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS v4, custom canvas engine. No backend. No required API keys.

Honesty

Quoted or closely paraphrased: IBHS Wildfire Prepared Home 0-5 Foot Noncombustible Zone (including fencing within 5 ft); NFPA Firewise Home Ignition Zone; NFPA 1144 (2018) 5.3.3 vents and 5.3.4 eaves, now in NFPA 1140 (2022) Chapters 24-26; ICC IWUIC 2024 504.10 / 504.10.2. Paraphrases are labeled. Section numbers are not invented.