I think you can make a case for many places being “stupid to build” on. But, many in hurricane areas are in long established communities and the communities and people there are not going away. Cities are having to adapt with new building codes, policies with where you can build, implementation of new things to keep the water at bay, infrastructure improvements, etc. In other places, wildfires, mudslides, might be more of a concern and there will probably need to be new policies implemented for the new reality there. There are certainly no easy answers with any of this and all of these changes are definitely taking a toll on loss of life and property, and of course the costs associated with all of this.
Absolutely @sevmom. People refusing to budge from flood areas, only to be flooded every couple of years, and rebuilding with federal funds & everyone else’s insurance premiums – that’s a problem too. California fires are just one of many examples of nature showing her might in unprecedented ways. You can add tornadoes on the East Coast, increasingly hot summers nationwide, prolongued droughts, etc etc to the phenonomenon. Later you can add famine and disaster migrations too. Things are a mess. And they will get worse.
And while we’re at it, eliminate the federal flood program. No more homes built/sold on the coasts/flood plains.
@bluebayou – the Obama administration tried to curtail the federal flood program.
CA certainly has earthquake building codes. But how do you anticipate where the next big fire will be? It’s hours and hours of forest and grassland. Sacramento Bee: “California has lost a total of 1,627,652 acres to wildfires so far in 2018, according to Cal Fire statistics.” That’s more than all of Delaware, nearly half of CT. I previously saw CA has 20 million acres of forest, it may be over 30m, depending on the source.
I don’t know what regs for power lines are. But it does seem a wider fire break under all remote power lines makes sense. Is it feasible?
adding:
→ No, I am seeing how even “100 feet of defenisble space” won’t work in severe winds and where response teams have trouble getting in.
California has strict fire codes for homes. Those close to fire prone areas are required to have in home sprinklers in new homes. Shake roofs are prohibited. Homeowners must cut back brush. But I think California has maxed out on population, particularly regarding water.
Wasn’t the Mendocino fire started by a spark from a car’s engine? A car that had broken down somehow?
I think we need to stop debating the acts of the left and right if we want this thread to stay open.
Flooding has hit areas that never had problems before and has impacted areas negatively that had very little flooding in the past. Floodplain maps have been changed, flood insurance has gone up. Many people have no flood insurance because they never felt they needed it before! Many/most communities affected have been around for 100 + years Supposed 100 year floodplains, 500 year storms, tornadoes , wildfires, earthquakes, mudslides, keep happening. Very easy for those not living in effected areas or those who have not been personally effected by a disaster to imply those areas should just be abandoned, not rebuilt. Great cities may have been abandoned if rebuilding had not taken place- San Francisco, New Orleans. It will be interesting to see how all this plays out in terms of rebuilding . But it is not necessarily “stupid” to consider rebuilding a community if at all possible.
We have lived in the greater Seattle area for almost three decades now, longer than many “locals.” I have never had my fire alarm go off INSIDE the house because I happened to leave the window open when the smoke form BC and OR fires filled the air. In fact, we have never had such smoky summers here. It is not just the fires, it is wind and atmospheric patterns.
Back to topic- nice to hear on the news today that the Camp Fire is 100% contained. It rained for a good part of Weds-Fri., though Thurs morning was beautiful and saw a splendid rainbow while on a family walk/run by the ocean. Yesterday was beautiful and Napa was a sight with changing fall leaves. Today was another clear day. Beautiful sunset. Hope the mudslides in the affected areas are minimal. Leaving all the N95 masks with the relatives. I hope it’s like carrying an umbrella to keep away the rain.
Hi everyone… yea, it’s been a long time since logging onto CC. There was someone in particular I wanted to reach out to, that I didn’t have an email or phone number for, so here I am. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that a thread about the fires is so lengthy! But here I am, now a recent transplant from IL to the LA area. We’ve been here just over two months, so it’s hit very close to home. We are renting short-term in Studio City, but will close on a house in the valley on Tuesday. So here’s my experience (and maybe something similar was mentioned earlier in the thread). As we entered escrow for our new home, we had to purchase homeowners insurance (OK, no big deal, right?). I’ve had all my insurance needs with State Farm since I started driving at sixteen years old… ALL of our policies as well as our daughters. So imagine our surprise when we called to get a quote on a policy for the new home… we were told by the agency owner (so no 20-year old who had no clue) that they aren’t writing policies in the area of our new home anymore. Evidently, our new home is considered in a high brush area (we are not quite up in the hills, but close), and State Farm quit writing policies for this area. However, the home that was second in contention for purchasing, only tad more than a mile down the road, would have been insurable. We were quite upset at hearing this, but our agent was able to give us the names of a few other companies who were willing to write us a policy.
Interestingly, the couple we’re buying the house from has been very affected by the fires; the husband works for a major disaster recovery company. Last week when we did the walkthrough, his phone must have rung a dozen times in 90 minutes. He said he has at least 40 high-profile clients in the Woosley Fire burn area. You could tell that he was incredibly stressed out.
Also, last weekend, we took a drive up to Ojai (our daughter from Boston was in town) for the day. So we drove along the 101, through Thousand Oaks, etc. The burn scars were indelible in my mind - I remember passing by an assisted living facility that was about a half block off the 101. The land between the 101 and the assisted living facility was burned. I can’t imagine how stressful that must have been for those living and working there. I have no idea if they evacuated or not, but the building stood unscathed. The smell was awful, as we smelled it in the car, through the AC filter.
Anyway, I’m so glad it has been extinguished. As far as those who purport that this is human-caused… I disagree. One of the things I’ve been educated on is the real threat of Santa Ana winds. They are insidious. I’ve been outside when they’re howling through, and that is all Mother Nature. It’s dry, high winds that come up over the dessert - at least one day I remember seeing on the weather report that our dew points were -0. That was a day when some of the winds were 60+ MPH. That is a recipe for disaster that makes something as basic as the undercarriage of a car like a lit match. Or even a lawnmower. I’ve learned so much in such a short amount of time.
Glad to see so many old-timers still around. Hope you and all your children are doing well!
@teriwtt - so glad to hear from you!!!
The new building codes in CA have good fire requirements, but I don’t think there are any requirements to retrofit houses are there? There was an interesting NPR piece on this: https://www.npr.org/2018/11/24/670581508/to-prevent-wildfire-devastation-look-at-building-design
Hi @teriwtt --So glad to see your name pop up! Congratulations on the new house! And stick around for a while now that you’re back!
From the article linked above. All it takes is a buffer! Why don’t they do it? Also, one could install a kind of shield around utilities like what we have for a fireplace to keep sparks in, a metal curtain maybe? That should provide more immediate measure while we argue whether it’s climate change or not.
And new communities continue to be approved in wildfire prone areas ie Tejon Ranch, once beautiful open land for wildlife.
Oh, Igloo, it’s far more isidious than a fire screen could block. You have to imagine the winds. I think it was Fang who made an earlier coment about how far sparks can fly in this sort of wind, crossing a 4 lane highway and more. That’s nearly 90 feet. And it’s not just a few sparks that land in some square foot. Then he winds carry that. There’s a reason they called the earlied fire this year a “fire-nado.”
@teriwtt - so glad to see your name pop up! Welcome to California.
How much “defensible space” do you need around a fire that jumped a freeway, like the fire in Napa? How much do you need when the fire jumped Lake Oroville? How non-flammable does a house roof have to be ito stop a fire that melts cars?
These fires are not like fires of the past. While “defensible space” is good and should be implemented, it wasn’t going to stop the Camp Fire.