Building codes

[rhu]

The picture on the front page, above the fold, of today's Times shows a block of destroyed houses, with one house on the block still standing. (The closest shot I could find on the Times online appears to be from the same street, but shows more houses still standing.)

Since periodic wildfires are apparently common to SoCal, one wonders why the insurance companies and building codes don't require houses to be built to withstand these fires, since it appears to be possible. Or is this a case where the fire "jumped over" a house that was built the same way as the others in the development?

Comments

[faux-pseudo.livejournal.com]

This is a case of jumping. If you look at the picture you can see that the trees behind the houses are still green and weren't burnt. Another thing to note is that these are track houses so they were all built by the same builders to the same specifications.

Your statements would make just as much sense if this was a tornado. It doesn't hit every house, or trailer for that matter, either. Some get skipped.

As far as building fire proof houses: In Southern California any house that would be fire proof would be prone to be destroyed by earthquakes. Brick, concrete etc are not conducive to surviving an earthquake but are very good at being fire resistant.

Another, though lesser, issue is fair number of Californians are already a touch bitter about the 50+ fire retardant chemicals found in their blood stream. 30 years ago there were only about 10 and none of them have been studied for the long term health risks so they aren't keen on putting any more in there.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

Thanks for explaining. Not having wildfire experience, I didn't know what signs to look for for "jumping" -- in the picture in the print edition, at least, there are also trees with green in between devastated houses.

they were all built by the same builders to the same specifications

For what it's worth, so were the houses in my parent's neighborhood in New York --- until people bought a parcel, tore down the house, and rebuilt in a completely different style and with different materials. That was the essence of the question at the end of my original posting: did the surviving house survive because it was of differing construction or was it "jumped over"?

Your statements would make just as much sense if this was a tornado.

Thanks for clarifying that. The way the press is reporting the fires here, they sound like a solid line that consumes all in their path, which I did not realize was inaccurate. Tornadoes, I think we all understand, are localized phenomena.

any house that would be fire proof would be prone to be destroyed by earthquakes

I hadn't realized the two are mutually exclusive. That's unfortunate.

Thanks for the enlightening feedback!

[faux-pseudo.livejournal.com]

Property values in SoCal are insanely high. This causes people to do stupid things like buy a house they can't put a basket ball hoop on or paint their house a color they like or block the view with a bush. The CCRs as they are called restrict so much of what a 'owner' can do to insure that property values stay high for an area and that your neighbor doesn't do something silly that might make his house look different from your house and thus have the Homer Owners Association have decreased dues because of falling home values. So while your parents may have been able to take a rebuilt home and tear it down and start something better this is not an option in SoCal. If you can't put a ball hoop up you can't build an extra room and you most certainly can't tear down and rebuild.

As for fire vs quake: Any fireproof building material is either going to be heavy, brittle, of a undetermined toxicity or have some other issue with it that will make it bad for quakes. Any quake proof stuff is going to be soft enough to melt or catch fire. The two are mostly exclusive of each other. One day someone will figure something out but by then we will have solved the whole problem by getting enough water in the desert so that these fire issues aren't so much of an issue.

The solid wall of flame idea isn't possible in SoCal. It happens in the great plains where the winds always moved in the same direction and the land is flat. But in SoCal there are lots of hills and canyons. These hills and canyons do strange things to the winds that come out of the mountains (the Santa Anna winds). Hot air rises and cold air settles. With the varied geography of the area the winds push the fires around in unpredictable ways. The media doesn't want to explain that. They just want you to stay tuned for more.

I was there during the 2003 fires and was sorry to miss this batch, I just couldn't afford to live in CA any more. 1 million people evacuated and a fair number of friends were among them. They don't know if they have houses to go home to.

[lucretia-borgia.livejournal.com]

You know, I saw that picture too. My first thought was, gee, G-d likes those folks. My second was of how they're going to have to put up with months and months of demolition noise and debris and zoning fights and everything else that goes with having every single neighbor rebuilding their houses at the same time.

[angwantibo.livejournal.com]

Having grown up in Southern California and lived in a house that burnt down, maybe I can assist here. The Santa Ana winds are a high speed Westerly wind that spreads the fires. If it weren't for the winds, the fires would be much easier to contain. Because of the winds, fires can travel across streets on what looks like air bridges. I have a very clear memory of this from when I was 3. The direction of the wind and distance between houses determines which get burnt down. Neither of our next door neighbor houses burnt down and there was no house behind us. If you built your house out of brick and used a tile roof, your house may be able to resist fires better, but will crumble during an earthquake. Also, houses are built very close to each other. In another city we lived in town homes. If one house is hit, probably a dozen would quickly go down. Land is at a premium so building the houses further apart is very difficult.

Generally, fire is not such a big risk as compared to earthquakes. Everywhere is hit by earthquakes. Fires are usually brush fires and occur in the fields and hills that do not have houses on them. Dry brush has a low combustion point and the fires in these areas spread like, well, wildfire. As most people in Southern California live in the cities (it's continuous cities unlike the northeast), there isn't much risk of getting hit by a fire. The fire that hit our house came through Fullerton before it was built up.

[rev69.livejournal.com]

what about structural steel on shock absorber-type footings with weather-sealing. I would think that would work.