Wild fires and homes being burnt.

I saw a picture of wild fire damage several years ago in CA. There where whole subdivisions that where completely burnt to the ground. Right in the middle of all of this stood a single home that had ZERO damage. The owner was an Asian immigrant that had his home built with tile roof and adobe walls. He also had no ornamental trees/scrubs by the house either. He was interviewed and was shocked that no one else had build their home without them being fire resistant. He had planned the whole house to with stand a external fire.

My point being it that houses in areas that can have wildfires should be built with fire resistant methods/materials. An example would be a brick house with a metal roof. That should be more fire resistant. My real question is why are the homes not built to have more protection from external fires in wild fire areas??? The insurance companies should stop insuring the ones that have fire hazards on/around them.

Makes a lot of sense to design that way knowing the potential, adapt and overcome or be burnt to the ground, makes total sense, I'd go with CMU (block) walls and tile roof, you can do a lot on the exterior with block, innner wyth cavity with brick veneer, incorporate commercial materials, metal studs, sheet goods like concrete or cement board, and so on, completely do-able, would have to assess costs to see the differences in construction cost, might still be well worth it if you include rebuilding numerous times.

I remember seeing a story on that guy. He caught Hell from the neighbors for building it the way he did. Bet the neighbors weren't so uppity after the fires burned them out.His was the only house left.

I retired a year and a half ago from a 32 plus year career as a wildland fire fighter for the state. Part of the job was trying to educate on the danger of wildfire, and what a homeowner can do to make their homes safer. It was difficult to get many to do what is suggested. Most seem to have the "it won't happen to me" attitude. More and more people build in places that it is difficult to even get equipment in there, and even if you could it isn't safe for the fire fighters to be there in hazardous situations. After the fact many would say the same thing, "I didn't think it would ever happen here."

That guy's house withstood the fire, but what about smoke damage? If the house smells like a firepit afterwards did he have a claim to the insurance company for that?

And with all the zoning that some want so they can control others, wouldn't you think in a case like that some stipulation on materials and landscaping would make some sense?

It comes down to cost versus risk. How does the additional cost of that construction compare to the odds of it ever making a difference? I don't know the numbers but unless wildfires are more than a once in a lifetime occurrence the expected value probably doesn't add up.

I have a house in the San Bernardino Natl Forest. Our fire dept requires us to have the area around the house cleared at all times, in three steps. First is no vegetation within 10 ft of the house, second is no dead vegetation over a certain height within (I believe) 30 ft of the house, and last is no dead branches or dead trees within (I believe) 50 ft of the house. Same rules apply to our propane tank. If we don't have it cleared, the fire dept will hire someone to clear it and we would have to pay. That's the only local regs I'm aware of, but we also have fire resistant comp roof and cement (Hardie) siding. I know some of the neighbors have wood siding, but it seems like everybody has fire resistant roofing. Sometimes it doesn't matter what you build with unless you go all concrete, since the embers from an intense wildfire will enter the structure thru vents in the roof or crawlspace.

Anouther retired CA firefighter heard form. Lots of things going on. The current law is 100 foot defensable space. That changed from 30 ft in 2005. Still, there is a bunch of the " No government agent is going to tell me what to do on my land". Fair enough. Righ now in CA no government entity has the money to enforce these things so anyone can get away with growing as much fuel (brush) as close to there house as they want to. Also, the trend has been to build in woodland mountian areas. No mater how anyone feels about global warming, what is not in dispute is that are winters are starting later, ending sooner and not gettting as cold. Oppertunistic pests are killing trees at higher elevations. This is the major reason the old "fire season" now runs all year long. All sorts of things can be done to make a house more fire safe, metal and concrete materials, finishing under decks, heat resistant windows, even curtian selection. All costs money though.

About 25 or so years ago we had a wind driven wildfire go through a fairly rural subdivision South of Spokane. With lots of dry Ponderosa Pine trees around the houses, most of the houses were totally destroyed. I drove through the area a few days later and almost all the houses were nothing more than burned out foundations, with occasional chimneys remaining. But right in the middle of the burned area was a house that appeared to have no damage at all, other than some scorching of one end of the wood deck. I noticed that the undamaged house had a regular 3-tab composition roof, and the roof was simple, with no places to catch pine needles and debris.

It turned out that the surviving house had been built before the rest of the subdivision went in. When they formed the subdivision, they established a covenant that all homeowners and builders were supposed to abide with. And part of that covenant was that all buildings were supposed to have split cedar shake roofs.

I later talked to the owner of the surviving house. He said he had been given quite a bit of crap about his "ugly cheap roof" over the years, but ALL of his neighbors" houses were lost and his "ugly cheap roof" had saved his house.

When the subdivision was rebuilt, split cedar shake roofs were no longer required, and in fact, might have been banned unless they were specially treated to be fire resistant. I see lots of composition roofs on the houses that replaced the burned ones.

I like the look of a hand split cedar shake roof, and if properly constructed, a cedar roof will last a very long time. But in an area where there might be wind driven wildfires, a cedar shake roof is a really stupid choice. It is like covering the top of your house with kindling.

I don"t think much of covenants either. I don"t think my neighbors should have much, if any control over my property. And that is one of the reasons I refuse to live in a subdivision. I also don"t like to have neighbors that close.

My house now has a 3-tab composition roof. When that needs to be replaced, I intend to put on sheet metal, which I think is even better protection than composition. And snow can slide off metal, but that is another topic.

Living in an area that has hazards make it a good idea to plan to deal with those potential hazards. If there is a covenant that has STUPID restrictions, then changing the restrictions or building somewhere else is the only thing that makes sense. being told that you have to have a roof that will burn fairly easily in an area that might very well have wildfires is ridiculous.

Tile roofs look to me like wind driven sparks could go under or around tiles and ignite the wood structure underneath. But I have no experience with tile. Composite or sheet metal seems to work well even in bad wind, assuming it is in good shape and was properly applied.

After hurricane damage in Florida, all the insurace companies left town and the state of florida is the insurance co.Citizens. You have to jump through all sorts of building code hoops to get anything done.

I agree, standards should be set. Just who sets them? I think both insurance co and local or state building codes should be change to decease the damage caused by fires, floods, earthquake, tornadoes, hurricanse, and so on.

But some don't want big brother to tell them what they can and can't do.


George

I do not know why you would a fire proof, tornado proof, flood pro---well you know, spend more on a house than the insurance would cost. You build what you want or can afford then insure it, just can't cover everything.

About the only thing someone could do is make a home resistant to blowing embers. If a full blown wildfire passed through heating the house up to thousands of degrees, no construction method would help unless it was underground. A person wouldn't have to use steel for a roof to make it fire resistant, the roof could be slate, clay or concrete to achieve this.

It all depends on what the building code was at the time. You don't have to up date your electrical, or plumbing if the code changes, so why would you change the building material on a house if the code changes. That being said, people do need to build fire wise and up date there fire mitigation plan yearly. Do you think the firemen are going to save a house where the homeowner put a little effort in building fire wise and implementing a fire mitigation plan or a house that the homeowner has neglected to do any fire prep. When we built our house in 1995 we were required to install a 4000 gallon dry hydrant just for fire fighting purpose only, and every year we trim the trees up get rid of the brush. We also have a firefighting pump and back up generator, we are prepared but then again if mother nature decides to burn it down, it will burn.
Tom

Last year there was a fire in Slave Lake, Alberta and on the news they would show over head pictures of burnt subdivisions with one house left standing. I think that there"s more to it than simply building material but the correct material likely help as well. In the picture you really have to wonder how the fire missed that house but it happened.

we are having lots of fires this year here, with several homes destroyed. oddly enough most were brick homes,and lots had tin roofs. the fact is when it gets hot enough that a perfectly green tree suddenly dry ignites,brick and tin wont help. i watched the news all weekend of all metal buildings suddenly erupting into flame.the biggest problem i saw was the lack of a defensable peremiter around these places. woods were within feet of structures etc. one newscaster was amazed that a farmer was out on his tractor driving up and down peoples front and back yards. and was really amazed when he was able to stop a 25mph wind blown fire in its tracks ( in fact she seemed disapointed that she didnt get a shot of the homes burning). that farmer saved singlehandedly( even the newswoman said there were no firefighters in sight) saved a whole block of homes while the fire jumped the road farther down and burnt row after row of brick homes. that had well watered grass lawns,and landscaping with trees close to them.