Re: OT California wildfires...fireproof your house

Posted by Hal/WA on October 30, 2003 at 01:07:26 from (216.64.132.67):

In Reply to: OT California wildfires...fireproof your house/tra posted by 26Red on October 27, 2003 at 14:35:42:

The first thing that would help is building your house in an area that is least likely to burn fast. Lots of those canyons should never have had houses built in them. The dry, heavy brush and steep slopes provide ideal conditions for wildfire and a "chimney" effect. I have never understood why California continues to allow building in areas that have burned before and almost certainly will burn again. And I wonder why insurance companies will write policies in those areas. I bet their costs are high!

It is possible to build houses that are less likely to burn than other houses. I would think that the tile roofs I have seen down there would be pretty good, assuming that they have no openings where wind driven embers can contact flammable materials or blow into the attic. Stucco also seems like an appropriate outer wall covering. But probably most important is maintaining a defensible space around the buildings, which means no bushes right next to the house, no trees for some distance and either green grass or no vegetation--gravel or stone for say, 50 feet. Maybe there is a way to make a wood deck fireproof, but I don't know about it. Concrete seems like a better idea to me. Windows would have to be covered with nonburnable shutters and have glass that would not shatter if exposed to high heat. And probably the houses would need to be spread out quite far, so the heat from a burning one would not ignite its neighbor.

And even with everything you could think to do, very possibly houses would still be lost. Those hot wind-driven firestorms are incredible.

In my area August and September and sometimes October are very dry. Much of the area is forested and it is getting more and more populated with people living on 5 to 40 acre parcels. We have had several wind-driven fires around here that have consumed thousands of acres and a good many of the homes in the fire's paths.

In such a firestorm, all the fire departments using all of their apparatus and personnel are stretched beyond their limits. Under such conditions, YOU HAVE TO FEND FOR YOURSELF! The only things that will work if a fire comes through are good construction planning for a potential fire, defensible space and hopefully a bit of personal firefighting. You have to have your own water supply, and because the electric power will probably go off, you need to either have a portable gasoline powered pump or a generator to power your well pump. If you have not prepared for a fire beforehand, you better get out of there. Maybe you could save some small prized posessions, like photos and the like, but saving your family is all that really matters. Good insurance is a must.

A number of years ago, a firestorm went through a housing development a few miles from where I live. The houses there were medium to high end and many had split cedar shake roofs, which I understand was part of the neighborhood covenant in some of the development. There were also lots of pine trees. In the areas where the main fire went through, almost all of the homes were burned down to the concrete foundations. However it was eerie to see a few houses among the burned out foundations, that had almost no damage at all. Every one of those surviving houses had relatively new composition roofs and most of them did not have valleys where the wind blown dry pine needles would collect.

The area rebuilt and now almost no split cedar roofs remain. But at least 50 families lost all their belongings that day. Luckily no lives were lost.

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