LA fires

[Loren Pechtel]

And has already mentioned several times: heat from the intensity of these fires will break glass windows and get inside even the brickiest of brick homes----and will cause severe structural damage to the point where the house will have to be torn down.

And I have mentioned this before: this assumes an inferno outside the house. Which is true enough in a regular wildfire situation: a rural community surrounded by the burning forest. In that case, nothing will save the house.
But in a suburban setting, having most of the houses made with non-flammable structures will reduce the overall fuel available to the fire. If the houses next to you are not fully engulfed, the scenario you mention is less likely to happen.

You can build to survive even the forest burning around it so long as you are far enough from the trees that they won't fall on the house. You need a lot of thermal mass and enough water stored on site to cool it. Do it right and the inside will not exceed the boiling point--not good for your sensitive stuff but the house itself will be ok.

 

[TV and credit cards]

A fire being pushed sideways by 100 mph winds is going wherever it wants. It is going to heat up the one inch thick/one hour fire rated stucco and combust the contents within and drive intense heat and embers up into soffits and over the firebreaks in them.
To build homes to withstands Santa Ana winds driving fire through the brush grown from feast and famine rains and dry weather would probably require concrete filled hollow block reinforced with rebar for earthquakes. Something like military structures built during the cold war except with windows with fire rated shutters that close automatically when the sensors trip them.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

That empty reservoir was somewhat relevant in that it meant less water in a problem area. But had it been full it wouldn't have been enough.

If this wouldn't have been enough, why are you bringing it up? I know you aren't gaslighting and you aren't trying to infer a failure here, but it reads like gaslighting.

I'm explaining the origin of the "turn off the water" bit. Everything has maintenance cycles and doesn't have 100% uptime. It doesn't mean the Democrats fucked up.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

My concrete block/stucco house with a metal roof is nearly Florida wildfire proof. Our fires are on flat terrain with less wind. What happened in Palisades would have gutted it. We still have wood trusses, rafters, joists... We don’t have steep terrain here and don’t get the kind of wind or sub 20 percent relative humidity with our fires. The great firestorm of 1998 hereabouts was a slow motion disaster. Nothing like what southern California is experiencing.

Wind and all the burning brush upwind of and within the neighborhood will drive the fire into every nook and cranny. Nothing short of a fire bunker will withstand it.

Plenty of stucco houses with metal or tile roofs failed in CA.

You need a fire bunker to survive if your area burns. You can engineer houses not to burn, though. If there is no way an ember can reach something combustible and the shell isn't going to be damaged by something else falling due to fire the house will usually make it. Add thermal mass and water and you can basically guarantee it makes it.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

That empty reservoir was somewhat relevant in that it meant less water in a problem area. But had it been full it wouldn't have been enough.

If this wouldn't have been enough, why are you bringing it up? I know you aren't gaslighting and you aren't trying to infer a failure here, but it reads like gaslighting.

I'm explaining the origin of the "turn off the water" bit. Everything has maintenance cycles and doesn't have 100% uptime. It doesn't mean the Democrats fucked up.

It was already explained. It doesn't need to be explained again. Those who are willfully ignorant don't need things they don't want to understand explained to them.

 

[barbos]

The actual fire was beyond anything we have seen but the alarm has been being sounded for years.

Captain Obvious?

 

[barbos]

A fire being pushed sideways by 100 mph winds is going wherever it wants. It is going to heat up the one inch thick/one hour fire rated stucco and combust the contents

You are assuming houses made of fuel.
It's true that bush in California is made of high quality fuel which burn extremely well and fast. And there is not much one can do about it - it will burn and take nearby houses with it. But it should not spread into the town, not if you build your houses with such scenario in mind.

 

[TV and credit cards]

A fire being pushed sideways by 100 mph winds is going wherever it wants. It is going to heat up the one inch thick/one hour fire rated stucco and combust the contents

You are assuming houses made of fuel.
It's true that bush in California is made of high quality fuel which burn extremely well and fast. And there is not much one can do about it - it will burn and take nearby houses with it. But it should not spread into the town, not if you build your houses with such scenario in mind.

Building codes have moved in the direction of more fire resistance. These codes are normally for new construction, not for existing homes. For example older homes that still have asphalt roof shingles are not required to convert to clay tiles when a new roof is needed. Clay tiles cost more. They also weigh significantly more so structural integrity may also be an issue.
There are limits/cost trade offs. The stucco exterior is about 24 mm of cement. Interior drywall (12 mm) has a half hour fire rating, 16 mm for attached garage walls. Framing can be metal but I believe most is still wood. Metal framing is more costly. Drywall thickness can also be increased. Here again, it is how much more of a cost burden gets added.
But if insurance companies refuse to insure, further changes to the building code and significant cost increase is what Californians might see.

 

[ZiprHead]

A fire being pushed sideways by 100 mph winds is going wherever it wants. It is going to heat up the one inch thick/one hour fire rated stucco and combust the contents

You are assuming houses made of fuel.
It's true that bush in California is made of high quality fuel which burn extremely well and fast. And there is not much one can do about it - it will burn and take nearby houses with it. But it should not spread into the town, not if you build your houses with such scenario in mind.

Those houses were built many decades ago, when southern California actually experienced rain.

 

[barbos]

Those houses were built many decades ago, when southern California actually experienced rain.

Does not excuse doing nothing before the fire. And newer homes don't look much better to me.

 

[Thomas II]

https://deadline.com/2025/01/bill-maher-fires-rick-caruso-1236260471/

 

[Thomas II]

 

[robnisch]

I see insurance as a big issue in this mess.
There is talk of having all of Cali put in the risk pool.
Fair?
The future?
Should we all share in the risk pool of increased cost of climate change?

 

[ZiprHead]

Those houses were built many decades ago, when southern California actually experienced rain.

Does not excuse doing nothing before the fire. And newer homes don't look much better to me.

So what's your excuse? Russia experiences a variety of natural disasters, including floods, wildfires, earthquakes, and landslides.

Floods

• 2012 Krasnodar region floods
  Heavy rains caused flooding in the southern region, killing 172 people and damaging 7,200 houses
• 2024 Orenburg floods
  Melting snow from the mountains caused flooding in the west of Russia, which some say was unprecedented

Wildfires

• 2010 wildfires: A heat wave caused wildfires in over 20 regions, killing more than 50 people and burning down thousands of houses
• 2022 Siberian wildfires: A wildfire disaster occurred in Siberia in 2022

Earthquakes

• 1995 Sakhalin earthquake: A 7.7 magnitude earthquake killed 1,989 people in the north of Sakhalin
• Earthquakes and volcanic activity: The Kamchatka Peninsula is prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity

Clearly US standards are far better than yours.

Fix your own house before you criticize ours.

 

[barbos]

Fix your own house before you criticize ours.

Same to you

 

[thebeave]

 

[ZiprHead]

^^^ The above bullshit is why I don't watch his programs anymore. Typical libertarian simplifications to complex problems.

 

[unapologetic]

I've just seen a photo of Malibu beachfront. Houses on the beach (the most expensive?) are all burnt. But the highway, as firebreak, saved houses on the hillside. The most expensive houses got burnt.

 

[southernhybrid]

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned, but it does appear as if it's the utility companies that may be responsible for these fires. Their infrastructure is very old and not well maintained. Read my shared link if you want to know a lot more. Below are a few quotes but there is a lot more info in the article and it's not behind a paywall.

https://wapo.st/3WqIjNj

Investigators are still examining the scorched landscape for clues to the causes of deadly blazes tearing through Los Angeles, but Altadena residents Sophie and Hagop Mehtemetian are not waiting for a culprit to be officially named.


They and many others who lost everything in the Eaton Fire have seen enough evidence. It points, they say, to a suspect familiar to wildfire victims across the west: their local electric utility.

Videos and photographs from eyewitnesses show fire sparking under two steel power transmission towers in the foothills above the Mehtemetian home. Fire officials confirmed that the Eaton Fire ignited there, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post, and was quickly carried into residential neighborhoods by fierce winds.

The Mehtemetians are among the first of what attorneys expect will be more than 10,000 plaintiffs signing onto lawsuits against Southern California Edison, the company that operates the power lines. Their complaint calls the Eaton Fire “a preventable tragedy” caused by Edison’s negligence. “Everyone saw that tower spark,” said their attorney, Greg Kirakosian. Damages from the Eaton Fire, which destroyed more than 7,000 homes and killed 17, could top $7 billion, according to plaintiffs’ attorneys.

Edison says it is still investigating and until Friday had not been permitted by fire officials to inspect its equipment on the charred hillside where the fire ignited.

If Southern California Edison is found to be at fault, it will be the latest in a tragically familiar pattern. Climate change has become an existential threat for utilities in a way it was not less than a decade ago, escalating the risk posed to communities by electrical power lines and poles that are often decades old.

It’s a crisis that spreads far beyond the break lines that contain wildfires. Utilities that serve entire regions of the West are being financially destabilized by the billions of dollars in legal liabilities for the devastation caused by fires, as well as billions more needed to modernize outdated infrastructure.

 

[robnisch]

I've just seen a photo of Malibu beachfront. Houses on the beach (the most expensive?) are all burnt. But the highway, as firebreak, saved houses on the hillside. The most expensive houses got burnt.

I say condemn it all and turn it into a public beach!