As the state of California begins preparing for another wildfire season, November's Camp Fire—the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history to date—offers up some important lessons. 

A new analysis released by McClatchy looked at property records in order to make sense of the fire's seemingly random paths of destruction. The results found that the year a house was built was a large determiner of whether or not it was likely to burn down. 

In 2008, the state updated its fire codes, mandating that newly built housing in wildland-urban interface zones meet strict building codes designed to prevent them from catching on fire. The new codes require homes be built with, among other things, interior sprinklers, fire resistant roofs and sidings, decks and patios made of non-flammable materials, and heat-resistant windows. 

Homes built after these codes went into effect have stood a much better chance of going undamaged. According the the McClatchy analysis, 51 percent of homes built after 2008 were undamaged, while only 18 percent of those built prior to 2008 had such luck. 

"These are great standards; they work," Robert Raymer of the California Building Industry Association told the Sacramento Bee.

Still, many remain at risk. Only 6 percent of California's housing stock has been built since the new codes were put into place and the state has done little to encourage retrofitting these older properties for fire safety. 

With newer regulations proving their efficacy, state and local counties will have to take on the enormous task of bringing everything up to code in order to prepare against inevitable fire hazards.