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Wood shingled roofs are currently against code. The wood shingle example was from 1980. Current code even disallows wood decks. My childhood home burned in the

by maire 8y ago

Wood shingled roofs are currently against code. The wood shingle example was from 1980. Current code even disallows wood decks. My childhood home burned in the Oakland hills fire - and it had a tile roof -- so roofing material is not enough. Having a defensible space also seems key. On a related note - I watched a youtube video on a woman driving up and down the streets of Paradise to show people if their homes survived. The homes that survived all seem to be surrounded by a watered lawn. This reinforces maintaining a defensible space is key to survival.

thaumaturgy 8y ago
In this particular disaster, there are more factors than defensible space. Some well-maintained, well-built homes with large yard spaces are ash now; other homes with no defensible space at all came out unharmed, including one with several cars in the yard and a 5 gallon can labeled "flammable" right against the garage. Removing fuel from on and around your home is a good idea regardless. Beyond that, I don't think most of us are qualified to guess on the fire behavior in Paradise (or Redding, or Napa, or Santa Rosa...). I will say that of the buildings still standing in Paradise, a disproportionate number of them seem to be brand new construction (<5 years old).
- maire 8y ago
  I am on another list with fire fighters all expressing their opinions. Here is what one said: I just got back from Butte Co - the ignition point in Pulga wasn’t deep forest, but grasses, shrubs and forest patches littered with downed and dead woody debris. Seems like a big fuel break by Pentz Road could have helped. It wouldn’t have saved Magalia and Concow but would have given Paradise residents more time to evacuate.
- RosanaAnaDana 8y ago
  I don't know if you've ever been to or through Paradise, but its very similar to many foothill communities in the north and south Sierras, in the sense that the town was effectively built into the surrounding forests. The forest in that area is primarily Ponderosa, and pretty decent sized ones as well. In this sense, and I can speak from authority as I've spent far more time in Paradise than I would have preferred (reasons below), pretty much the entire town had negative defensible space. Most of the houses in Paradise are (were) fully surrounded by 50-120 foot pondos and under a closed canopy. Likewise, most of the new construction was built on the ridge (Skyway) between Paradise and Chico, which is primarily California live oak and grassland. A huge mitigating factor in all of this however, is the level of poverty in and around the (former?) town of Paradise. Not sure how well this has been represented in the media, but Paradise as a community is poor as shit. There are just about -shit_all- jobs (outside the hospital) in that area that don't involve selling cigarettes and lotto tickets. Paradise, Concow, Magalia, pretty much some of the poorest areas of California I know of. Many of the families in that area lived on properties that had been built over several generations, handed down from gold-rush era mining claims. These aren't people who keep insurance on anything. Nor are they the kind of people who concern themselves with maintaining a defensible space around their homes.
  - thaumaturgy 8y ago
    I stayed in Paradise for a handful of days around a month ago. Nice people and town, and I'm really saddened to see what's happened to them. As the article points out, there are some interesting areas where there are green or just lightly singed trees surrounding homes that are totally gone. Certainly there are also a lot of trees that clearly went up like torches. There was also a place where the fire came halfway up the front yard and then just ... stopped. If I remember right, that yard was mostly bare dirt though with just a light layer of pine needles, which don't burn well. Every place around it was completely gone, and I mean completely. They had a neighbor's house all of about twenty feet from their house. Neighbor's house is just dust, the wall on this house wasn't even darkened. The new construction I was talking about were individual buildings or, in one case, a small series of retail spaces. Everything surrounding them was just ash. So there may be some merit to what the article's saying. It kind of explains some of the oddities I've seen. I didn't get to survey the area in detail before it was destroyed though. I've been out there one full day so far on the ground in a SAR team, and I'm scheduled to be out there again Sunday through Wednesday in overhead. I wish I could be out there more but my day job is being a bit difficult right now.
olliej 8y ago
But at the same time, watering a lawn is incredibly wasteful of water, in a state that’s in a more or less perpetual drought at this point. Long term you need regular controlled fires, and no one planting explosive trees (eucalyptus being a good Bay Area example of terrible ideas)

by maire 8y ago

thaumaturgy 8y ago

In this particular disaster, there are more factors than defensible space. Some well-maintained, well-built homes with large yard spaces are ash now; other homes with no defensible space at all came out unharmed, including one with several cars in the yard and a 5 gallon can labeled "flammable" right against the garage. Removing fuel from on and around your home is a good idea regardless. Beyond that, I don't think most of us are qualified to guess on the fire behavior in Paradise (or Redding, or Napa, or Santa Rosa...). I will say that of the buildings still standing in Paradise, a disproportionate number of them seem to be brand new construction (<5 years old).

maire 8y ago
I am on another list with fire fighters all expressing their opinions. Here is what one said: I just got back from Butte Co - the ignition point in Pulga wasn’t deep forest, but grasses, shrubs and forest patches littered with downed and dead woody debris. Seems like a big fuel break by Pentz Road could have helped. It wouldn’t have saved Magalia and Concow but would have given Paradise residents more time to evacuate.
RosanaAnaDana 8y ago
I don't know if you've ever been to or through Paradise, but its very similar to many foothill communities in the north and south Sierras, in the sense that the town was effectively built into the surrounding forests. The forest in that area is primarily Ponderosa, and pretty decent sized ones as well. In this sense, and I can speak from authority as I've spent far more time in Paradise than I would have preferred (reasons below), pretty much the entire town had negative defensible space. Most of the houses in Paradise are (were) fully surrounded by 50-120 foot pondos and under a closed canopy. Likewise, most of the new construction was built on the ridge (Skyway) between Paradise and Chico, which is primarily California live oak and grassland. A huge mitigating factor in all of this however, is the level of poverty in and around the (former?) town of Paradise. Not sure how well this has been represented in the media, but Paradise as a community is poor as shit. There are just about -shit_all- jobs (outside the hospital) in that area that don't involve selling cigarettes and lotto tickets. Paradise, Concow, Magalia, pretty much some of the poorest areas of California I know of. Many of the families in that area lived on properties that had been built over several generations, handed down from gold-rush era mining claims. These aren't people who keep insurance on anything. Nor are they the kind of people who concern themselves with maintaining a defensible space around their homes.
- thaumaturgy 8y ago
  I stayed in Paradise for a handful of days around a month ago. Nice people and town, and I'm really saddened to see what's happened to them. As the article points out, there are some interesting areas where there are green or just lightly singed trees surrounding homes that are totally gone. Certainly there are also a lot of trees that clearly went up like torches. There was also a place where the fire came halfway up the front yard and then just ... stopped. If I remember right, that yard was mostly bare dirt though with just a light layer of pine needles, which don't burn well. Every place around it was completely gone, and I mean completely. They had a neighbor's house all of about twenty feet from their house. Neighbor's house is just dust, the wall on this house wasn't even darkened. The new construction I was talking about were individual buildings or, in one case, a small series of retail spaces. Everything surrounding them was just ash. So there may be some merit to what the article's saying. It kind of explains some of the oddities I've seen. I didn't get to survey the area in detail before it was destroyed though. I've been out there one full day so far on the ground in a SAR team, and I'm scheduled to be out there again Sunday through Wednesday in overhead. I wish I could be out there more but my day job is being a bit difficult right now.

olliej 8y ago

But at the same time, watering a lawn is incredibly wasteful of water, in a state that’s in a more or less perpetual drought at this point. Long term you need regular controlled fires, and no one planting explosive trees (eucalyptus being a good Bay Area example of terrible ideas)