Fire suppression and lack of controlled burns leads to big fires. However in an environment with hot Santa Ana Winds, even with good forest land fuel management, a city like Pacific Palisades as it stood could conceivably burn from an accidental fire within the city.
The real question is this: do we have the capability to build a house that would not burn down if the neighboring house caught fire? If so, a city could be build that would be impervious to wild fire, arson, and accidental fires.
I can build you a fire proof house; however, you almost certainly do not want to live in it. It will be uncomfortable and unsightly. Avoiding disaster at all costs is not the reason we build cities or invest in homes.
The better question is, do we have the capacity to build a _city_, that would limit spreading fire damage even if one of it's neighborhoods completely lit on fire?
That will cost a lot less and still be a beautiful place to live.
Defensible housing exists, there have been some viral photos of a few houses that survived this wildfire. But the embers from large fires can fly for miles in high wind, so it would likely have to be the whole city
Technically, but nothing miles away caught on fire. The ignition zone is likely only a few hundred yards even in intense Santa Ana winds. So that means only homes in fire prone areas (or adjacent) would need to be made very defensible.
"Technically, but nothing miles away caught on fire. The ignition zone is likely only a few hundred yards even in intense Santa Ana winds."
Not true. Here in Riverside we were watching large still-lit embers floating in (some which caused a repeat fire in the riverbottoms north of the 60, first called Brown then called Holly.) The primary stopping zone currently is around Pomona but another hard uptick in wind and it can easily cover out to the badlands.
These winds are absolutely insane, you just do not understand. When they were peaking on Wednesday morning, my Subaru was being blown almost out of lane while driving down the 91 to work.
Probably a more pertinent question would be: can you construct houses that would not burn in a Santa Ana if all the vegetation and landscaping nearby burned.
If you have fire resistant structures and only vegetation burned, not any structures, it would be much less expensive to replace just the landscaping plants.
In a 80 mph wind, it would be very challenging to design a structure that would survive a wooden house burning next door.
Can’t speak for every insurer but CalFAIR does. There’s been a large push to have homeowners install those improvements over the last five years but they’re relatively minor like clearing brush around the house and installing vulcan vents. They don’t give a big enough discount to justify the expensive improvements that would really help in this Altadena fire like installing concrete tile roof, stucco exterior, or an exterior sprinkler systems. That kind of retrofit would probably cost at least $100k for an old house like most of the ones up there. The minor measures don’t help in a freak event like these Santa Ana winds.
The real question is this: do we have the capability to build a house that would not burn down if the neighboring house caught fire? If so, a city could be build that would be impervious to wild fire, arson, and accidental fires.
How much would this cost?