In California, developers are building the country’s first wildfire resilient neighborhoods

A new neighborhood under construction near Sacramento, California, in the rolling foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, looks like a typical subdivision. But it’s one of the first developments designed at a neighborhood scale to withstand wildfires.

Each house goes farther than California’s latest building requirements for high-fire-risk zones, from enclosed, ember-resistant eaves to dual-paned, tempered glass windows that can better withstand extreme heat in a fire. The design considers not just each house...