In 2003 the Old Fire. We were in Cedar Glen near Lake Arrowhead area when the fire ran thru that area. One house had Halloween decorations hanging from their ceiling. Plastic decorations that we elongated do to the radiate heat coming thru the windows. If I can find the pics I took, I will post. Outside of the houses was off gassing. When we cooled the outside of the houses down windows broke. Had to cut up interior doors and found an old widow in a garage to cover up the broken windows.
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Hereās a link to an interview I did with Eric Knapp and Yana Valachovic about their research into structure losses in the Camp Fire. The single biggest factor driving losses was radiant heat from another, nearby burning structure. Itās not enough to harden just the house. Youāve gotta take care of the sheds, chicken coops, detatched garages, and other buildings, too.
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A FF1 I worked with in 87 in SLU came up with the idea to put fire shelter material in canisters, like model 1ās and 5ās, along roof peaks to cover the whole house when needed. He made a video of him climbing into a 10x14 shed with the āshelterā deployed and brush piled up to the eaves. He had a camera inside and out, and a thermometer inside with him.
His buddy lit the brush. It burned very well. There was zero damage to the shed and the temperature went up 1 degree inside, if I remember right. It was a minute increase.
The season he was working on this, he kept saying, āIāve got an invention. Iām gonna get rich!ā But he had to get the patent first before he told us what it was.
The next season he had the patent and showed us the video. He disappeared half way through the season, got his payoff.
Turns out an insurance company paid 6 figures to buy him out. Guess insurance payments make more money than protecting and saving the insured property. Kinda reeks of improvements to auto emissions patents being bought out by auto and fuel industries.
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I remember a freelance photographer going around Shaver after the fire moved on and he saw fire creeping in the duff toward someoneās deck, he dug a little line down to dirt and used most of his water to put the fire out then let a crew down 168 know.
The tools and materials to prevent these conflagrations exist already but the problem is cost, willingness, and building codes etc. We can buy fire resistant coating, paints, siding, decking, roofs, and interior products but itās kind of expensive, then again so is a house.
If you look at the damage assessments and look at what didnāt burn you see what surrounds the home and what itās made of. Some homes survive by sheer luck and hard work, some are built to survive with minimal intervention.
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oh man. Betting they tweaked one small thing and renewed patent. Iām really enjoying retirement, too.
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LAFD: āDesign For Disasterā - The Story of the Bel Air Conflagration | 1962
This 1962 documentary film produced by the Los Angeles Fire Department, describes the historic Bel Air / Brentwood wildfire that started on November 5, 1961 in the Bel Air community of Los Angeles. Over the course of three days, the wind-driven fire destroyed 484 homes, damaged 190 others, and burned over 16,000 acres. Amazingly, there was no loss of life attributable to the blaze.
The then $30 million disaster led to new laws in the City of Los Angeles to eliminate wood shingle roofs, and to clear dry brush away from homes. The film is narrated by actor William Conrad.
Conrad found stardom as a detective in the TV series Cannon.
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History just repeats itself but you know it was the governor and the mayors fault oh and the fire chief is a DEI hire and lets blame the democrats as well. I cant believe how quickly this became a political thing. It is disgusting what humans will put on the internet.
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This has really drifted from my original post/topic. Mods feel free to close the topic anytime if you so desire.
Well it was intended to generate thought on the economic impact such as insurance availability and costs etc. It has drifted many directions. If you all think it should remain open, OK by me.
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Yeah I read your original post. I think its been healthy and the point of my last post is that I feel the blame is just getting all over the place and I hope to god everyone can focus on real causal factors and what can be done to reduce risk and get us insurance and potential lower the rates (im a dreamer). My fear is all the noise does not help our concern, distracts from real solutions etc. Now are wildlfire risks going to be made on reservoirs and fire hydrant main sizes ? I know availability of water is a factor of course but using this fire scenario as the defacto and blaming the water system is bad. Just yesterday on Ring my local fire dept made an announcement about our water system. So now is water on the mind of every insurance company as now the main source of impact?
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OK letās keep it openā¦ carry on.
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The loss of property tax is pretty devastating for any kind of public services.
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Will the Insurance Service Organization (ISO) change how the ratings 1-5 are given our and what the mean?
LAFD is a ISO Class 1 dept.
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ā¦ and check out this additional āGolden Oldieā. (1970 fire seige) As I recall, wood shake roofs in the Inland Empire lasted up until the 1980 Panorama fire in San Bernardino. Countdown to Calamity : California Department of Forestry : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
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I live in KIleyās district very close to his house
These are ironic words given he has thick stands of manzanita/oak/blackberry, down/dead brush, and has taken very little ownership of his own fire threat.
Maybe instead of bloviating for media attention and R political points, he spend a few hours cleaning up his own damn yard.
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I was boots on the ground to many WUI fires. So many was for a hot ember to get a start in hot dry weather, even days later.
Sorry for your loss.
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Back in the day when I was working on special projects, I was assigned to help prepare our department for an upcoming visit by ISO for an update on the ratings. Although the criteria has changed some and possibly a lot, it was still based on what they called credit for engine companies, credit for ladder companies, credit for training and training records, training time, hydrant inspections and records and the all important hydrant spacing, hose and reserve hose and testing records, ability to meet the calculated fire flows within time parameters, reserve apparatus, the apparatus and staffing that could be placed on a fire within time parameters, and a host of other items. One thing it was not looking at was credit for what we have been experiencing, ie., urban fires and fires that involve fires spreading block after block or entire communitiesāconflagrations.
In a slightly sarcastic tone, if they start applying that as part of the measuring yardstick, thereās not a department in this country that will be anything less than a class 10 department. And as I remember, theyāre still 10 classes, but 8-9 and 10 are kind of lumped in together. With the changes they made when I was involved, insurance rates for single-family homes were not as affected as those of commercial buildings, but for large commercial buildings, a change from one or two to a five or six would probably have a significant and far reaching effect.
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At one time (younger years) iād have scoffed at this idea, now i cant stop thinking about it.
Have the adults in charge ever kicked around the idea of requiring in-ground fire shelters for dwellings & public space fire shelters for citizenry caught away from home? Not the current āstorm sheltersā iām talking fire hardened bunkers that wont burn and allow for the fire front to pass. Iām thinking in the same vein as tornado shelters in tornado country - fire shelters in fire country seems like an obvious thing to be doing. The charade of a āsafe evacuationā has me thinking / wondering; āwould or wouldnāt it be better if citizens could hunker rather than try to escape that initial or secondary blast of fireā" Humans (in interface zones) are restricted & confined in how we can maneuver away from oncoming firefrontās thanks to how your towns streets are designed & oriented. It is in those same narrow lanes designed for ānormal traffic loadingā that our 1st responders are supposed to charge into and save the day. This needs to be understood by all. And, as a person whoās lived in some of the worst interface areas i decided in 1992 after the Fountain Fire that responders could flat out refuse to enter interface firezoneās until the initial firefront moves thru and i would never ever complain one bit if they said no - but they always say yes!! Only the oneās who have been in āitā truly understand that we ask for way too much from our firefighters/1st responders, firefighting pilots, law enforcement officers and all they do is what we ask of them. We do not ask responders to try and stop tornadoes & earthquakes but for some reason we think we can make a stand against any/all fires - thank you Smokey Bear?!
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