Potlatch idea tested by fire

Wildfires that blazed across the West in recent years are the inspiration for Potlatch Corp.’s newest product — fire-resistant cedar decking.

The Spokane company is betting that homeowners who spend millions of dollars on luxury homes at the forests’ edge will invest in flame-resistant decking as well.

“Our prime market is expensive homes in remote locations that can’t get great fire insurance,” said Mike Urso, Potlatch’s vice president of marketing. “They’ve got all this money tied up in a house, and it’s very vulnerable.”

Potlatch shipped its first truckload of the new decking to Colorado on Monday. The red-brown wood looks like ordinary cedar decking, but it’s been pressure-treated and injected with chemicals, and costs about 35 percent more than regular decking.

In product demonstrations, fires are lit under the decking. The treated cedar starts to char at temperatures of 400 degrees, creating a nitrogen residue that insulates and protects the remaining wood, according to the company.

“It looks the same as regular decking, feels the same, nails the same. It has all the qualities of wood, except that it’s fire-resistant,” said George Woods, marketing director at Chemco Inc.

Potlatch developed the decking in partnership with Chemco, a Ferndale, Wash., company that already sells fire-resistant wood shingles.

Potlatch was looking for ways to expand sales of its cedar decking, a $16 million annual business that’s beginning to experience competition from wood-composite decking. Chemco, meanwhile, views fire-resistant decking as the industry’s next big marketing opportunity.

“Given the magnitude of fires in the West, we believe there’s the potential for the fire codes to change in a lot of these urban-wildland areas,” Woods said. “We’re trying to get out there early, so people know they have options other than synthetics, like fiber cement or metal.”

Last year, San Diego County adopted fire codes requiring fire-resistant decking in new homes. The stricter codes come on the heels of wildfires that destroyed thousands of houses in rural neighborhoods.

Potlatch’s new decking was designed to meet the new codes.

“Decks are one of the problem areas,” said Ed Hayman, a fire code specialist in San Diego County.

People who watched their homes go up in flames often told him that the fire crept underneath a wooden deck. Heat from the resulting blaze cracked windows, allowing the flames to sear through the house.

“It’s like lighting a candle,” Urso said of a deck fire. “It wicks itself right up to the house.”

San Diego County homeowners have several options under the new code, including enclosing the area underneath their decks with stucco. Hayman was not familiar with Potlatch’s treated decking, but he knows of only one other wood decking that meets the code’s requirements.

Potlatch’s decision to sell fire-resistant decking has raised some eyebrows in the forest-products industry, which tend to be rather conservative, Urso said.

“By saying that you need fire-resistant decking, you’re admitting that wood burns,” he said. “We think it’s obvious that wood burns, but it’s still a great material.”