A picture’s worth a thousand words!
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FEMA doesn’t write building codes.
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Walls will
Block wildlife from crossing and damage ecosystems.
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Sorry, but I disagree. Walls may slow down the fire front or radiant heat near a structure, but they will do nothing for the embers that are lofted into the sky and carried for miles. The Mountain fire in November had embers cross a 2.5 mile ag zone (orchards, row crops) and state highway and ignite a receptive hillside. The fire then ran right onto the community. While the loss from the fire (182 homes) pales in comparison to the fires this past week, it still has the same effect for those who lost their homes. While we did not have any life loss, 1 life lost, 1 home destroyed is just as bad to that family regardless of where the fire occurred.
We need to get the existing homes retrofitted to withstand embers and clear the vegetation/ combustible adjacent to the homes. Maybe the Fed and State can put more $$ up front in prevention to reduce the cost for response and recovery. Our county has wildfire building retrofit requirements for major remodels and additions (while the State Code does not require it). If it is good enough for the State to require handicap upgrades, then maybe the State should change the code to require it for wildfire exposure. Got to start somewhere. Off my soap box. Carry on.
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So, with State money maybe, but the people of Alaska, North Carolina, Kansas, Nebraska and the other 45 states should not pay for the life choices (such as where and how to live) of folks in California. Nor should California residents pay for their ( the other 49 states ) home improvements.
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No federal money for flood preparedness in Missouri, earthquake readiness in Alaska or hurricane response in Florida? We live in a society.
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Defensible space is incredibly important, but it has it’s limitations in a fast moving fire driven by high winds. The Camp Fire jumped across the very large Feather River Canyon within an hour or so of being called in. The Feather River that had previously acted as a buffer to Paradise and Magalia from fires that started east of it. SO many of the homes and businesses lost WERE defensible, the issue was that firefighters had to focus so heavily on public safety and evacuations that there was no time for defending them. I evacuated by 9am, after turning off my gas, bringing patio furniture inside, closing all interior doors and windows, hosing down our chicken coop, running the yard sprinklers, and a few other things to prepare the property, and my husband was on shift and heavily engaged in the fire fight elsewhere in town. The fire front ran through our own neighborhood by late morning, and around 5pm a firefighter friend driving by stopped by our home and made a quick check around it. He called and let us know everything was still fine but a neighbor’s house was burning (well spaced homes on about acre lots with chain link fencing between). He was alone and had to continue on, but by 9pm he drove back by and our house was up in flames. Our house was older construction, but had boxed in eaves, defensible space, we had removed overhanging trees, etc. If there were engines free to work it, it WAS defensible, like many others, but the focus necessarily had to be on evacuating people and keeping evacuation routes clear. Even if all of the engines in the state were available to help, there would have been no way to get them in and civilians out in the time needed that day.
Of course there were also many properties that did not have adequate defensible space, and there could have been a better chance for the community as a whole if every single thing did, but after each of these big fires there is an immediate jump to defensible space needs and I think the truth is a lot more complicated.
Most Native Californians did not create permanent dwellings, and instead moved with the seasons, and I think their reasoning was not just to follow food sources, but also to take into account the nature of our climate, which has always included long dry periods and fire. They also used fire intentionally as they moved around, something we are trying to bring back but is difficult to accomplish with our population density and permanent structures. Many of my ancestors were also early California settlers who had vast tracts of land and a single house and outbuildings, and almost all of them lost their house to fire at one point or another and had to rebuild or move elsewhere. The problem of fire isn’t new. It’s just affecting way more people now.
I like living in a permanent house and don’t want to rebuild it periodically due to fire, but I think there eventually needs to be some adjustments in our living expectations in California. I’m not sure what the answers are, but I think they are going to be a lot more complicated than simply changing building codes or building buffers around towns. Those things may help, but there is a much more complicated problem here.
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What do you suppose was the factor in your homes ignition? Wind driven embers? 5pm to 9pm is a big chunk of time Im curious how long after your neighbors home was on fire yours was if you have any idea.
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Good House Keeping also plays a role. The Big one leaf litter in Gutters and on roofs! Anything flammable on decks, patios and patio furniture, cardboard boxes, woodpiles and wooden fences. Dry rot on building materials, brooms, mops or anything ember cast can land into and cause a fire. Lets not forget about Tan bark and Mulch. This list is endless and come back to good maintenance and house keeping.
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Peoples trash cans issued by the trash company were on fire, wind blew lid open, enter ember, sitting right next to your house. So many potential ignition sources, heck I have a box spring in my trash enclosure about 10 feet from my house I need to take to the dump (for 3 months now lol). You are right @ffviking the list is long.
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Trash cans lids and embercast that’s pretty wild. This is what I love about this sight. So much knowledge and experience that is shared here. Never ever came to mind about the trash cans. And just about every house has one. Thanks for sharing!
Roll of Duct Tape would work wonders if you had a little time.
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I wish I knew exactly, but it was such a hectic day I do not know any more specifics about timing or source. I’m sure wind driven embers were the initial cause of everything that happened in Paradise that day though, including bringing the flames to our house. We had an unusually strong East wind that day (that like LA, had been forecasted prior). Easily 60 mph gusts, and once the fire got larger it began to create it’s own wind as large fires often do. All aircraft was grounded most of the first day due to the wind. We typically receive our first substantial rain on Oct 31st or Nov 1st, but that year it came about a week after the fire. I know of several houses that were new build, stucco or cement exterior, all of the current fire resistant bells and whistles, rock landscaping, and still they burned. While a handful of old buildings that you wouldn’t expect to survive made it through without damage. I think the biggest take away from our fire, and I expect may hold some parallels to the LA fires, is that wind direction and chance played a huge role in what made it and what didn’t, much more than might be expected. Again, defensible space, etc is still incredibly important for a “normal fire,” but these large wind driven fires I think are a different beast altogether and even something defensible may have no one able to be around to defend it.
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I mean maybe we get a change to the trash can? Some sort of lock that gets undone when it gets tipped upsided down by the trash truck? But all this takes effort by the homeowner. If they dont lock it or overload it and lid is not locked etc this does not matter. Like so many things the onus is on the homeowner.
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Yeah curious on the new builds that are required to have the latest and greatest but curious to what their structure to structure separation was and then to the point of what @ffviking said on the whole tidiness thing, something you put near your home that you meant to discard but had not yet (yeah im looking at myself and the boxspring for 3 months on side of my house) catches fire or the trash cans etc. So many factors that we need to consider.
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Some years ago I watched an educational video about preparation for protection of dwellings in the face of wildfire. One thing I had never considered was intense radiant heat through windows igniting the interior of a building. Especially dangerous were lightweight curtains. Fireproof shutters were advised.
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I recently had a structure fire that was caused by a fire in an exterior typical plastic shed from your local home improvement chain. I came around the corner and it was like a blow torch, ignited down stairs and upstairs bedrooms and melted the plastic mini blinds to the next door neighbors house that was 15 feet away. Yup those windows do not block much heat transfer and that was from a shed on fire.
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I think he was saying walls prevent critters (wildlife, not wildfire) from moving around, thereby damaging ecosystems.
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I like your thinking. Fusible links, and/or remote link to close them when nobody’s home? Spring or gravity backup so electricity is not required.
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I live in the central sierra’s with once heavy timber. I tell all the recent city dwellers that think it is a wonderful place to live "do not move here unless you are both financially and emotionally prepared to loose everything in a heartbeat, do not to move to the area. Go back to where you came from, this is not for you.
The other thing I tell them is have a single go bag with all essential documents, don’t stay to fight the fire, get in your vehicle and leave, but this is all refurbished jeep track, 40 acre plus parcels and very heavy timber.
This set of fires in LA will certainly provide the excuse for a heavier boot on our necks.
We’ve been through it. Son lost his home in the Paradise fire, we’ve been evacuated three times and finally caught by the recent Oak fire which destroyed everything we own except the island around the house with 10-12 evergreens.
We still have homeowners insurance, maybe because the claim is still open. That shoe will surely drop at some point. we’ll cross that bridge when it happens.
An interesting sidebar. We have had our property masticated, but because it had not gone through a winter, the layer of very dry chips on the ground, allowed for a much hotter fire in the cleaned up areas, destroying timber that should have survived.
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