Comment by WalterBright
Comment by WalterBright 14 hours ago
> Despite these things the area still burned.
I suspect the rules for making a defensible house were wrong. For example, I read an article recently that posited that most of the fire was spread by burning embers on the wind, and not by intense heat from nearby flames.
The idea is to look at where embers accumulate and eliminate or fireproof those areas. For example, a low masonry wall a few feet from the house can stop a lot of heavier burning embers from piling up against the house. If you've got a swimming pool, add a pump to it that feeds sprinklers in the yard and on the rooftop.
There are a lot of homes that did not burn - look at them and figure out why they didn't burn.
For a related example, every airplane crash is looked at, and we always discover overlooked vulnerabilities. The tsunami that devastated Japan a few years ago also provided a lot of information about what worked and didn't work.
We're a long way from needing to give up. There's a lot of low hanging fruit.
Sure, but that's how it already works. The airplane example is how building codes generally work. London didn't rebuild in wood after the Great Fire, to give an ancient, and large-scale, example.
From what I've read, the houses in LA that did survive were modern or heavily remodeled houses incorporating recent code changes to prevent embers from entering the eaves and suchlike.
It really doesn't help that most of LA was built up in the early to mid 20th century; requiring code updates during remodels can only help so much, because if the cost/change is too much/invasive the homeowners either don't remodel at all or do it without permits, bypassing the more costly safety improvements.