10 ms·

I found an article from June with more specifics: https://urbanize.city/la/post/los-angeles-wildfire-wood-construction https://urbanize.city/la/post/los-angeles

I found an article from June with more specifics: https://urbanize.city/la/post/los-angeles-wildfire-wood-construction https://urbanize.city/la/post/los-angeles-wildfire-wood-cons... That article contains this interesting nugget of information: "the proposal [...] is backed by an organization called Build with Strength. The campaign, led by the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association..." So it seems this may have more to do with $$$ than actual safety.

clairity 5y ago
this is exactly what regulatory capture looks like, deceptive and anti-progressive (expressly without the typical political association). as such, every ballot measure should be a default 'no' unless you thoroughly understand the second- and third-order implications of the measure, not just because it sounds good on the surface.
JumpCrisscross 5y ago
Another HN comment [1] notes this source is biased. Do we have an independent source confirming this move would not improve fire safety in Los Angeles? Playing devil’s advocate, if I’m in a concrete business’s government relations office and I see a fire safety proposal that would help my company’s sales, I’m going to pitch in to help. That doesn’t necessarily mean the proposal was corruptly originated or advanced. (It does merit closer inspection.) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29299636 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29299636
- DantesKite 5y ago
  You also have to factor in the risk of earthquakes. Los Angeles doesn't have frequent earthquakes, but because it's near a fault-line, that tail risk has to be addressed (the same way one wears a seatbelt, even though car accidents happen only a couple times in an individual's life).
  - necovek 5y ago
    I never knew that wood construction was considered safer than concrete construction when it comes to earthquakes. Even the smallest of residential houses here (Serbia) are constructed with reinforced concrete as the base and reinforced concrete pillars, with brick walls filling in between the pillars and floors and ceilings: basically, a house is a reinforced concrete box that can move independently from the ground, and that's supposed to guarantee earthquake stability (it's definitely not done for fire reasons, since roof construction is still predominantly wooden). Construction standards have been heavily modified post-1963 Skopje earthquake (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1963_Skopje_earthquake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1963_Skopje_earthquake). Buildings such as Ušće tower, built in this style, have not survived a big earthquake, but I imagine surviving a couple of tomahawk missiles is a good enough reassurance of stability: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U%C5%A1%C4%87e_Towers#NATO_bombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U%C5%A1%C4%87e_Towers#NATO_bom... (though I am fully aware that earthquakes and missiles are completely different when it comes to shocks a building experiences). Interestingly, concrete based construction is one of the cheapest around here, possibly because most houses are built that way. So I wonder, how prevalent is reinforced concrete use for houses in USA and esp California? Are there many houses and buildings built with insufficiently-reinforced concrete? I know that wood is a predominant construction choice, but what type of reinforced concrete are you comparing it to?
- atomicUpdate 5y ago
  It doesn’t matter if it improves fire safety, since wood frame houses are already safe to live in. There is a point of diminishing returns that a change like this clearly goes beyond.
  - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    > doesn’t matter if it improves fire safety, since wood frame houses are already safe to live in This is tautological. Whether they’re safe to live in is the entire debate. (Wood-frame house in a suburb has a different risk profile from one in a dense neighbourhood by brush.) Safety standards evolve as the environment changes and our tolerance for risk, mediated by technology, decreases.
    - floatingatoll 5y ago
      That's one debate. There are two debates. Debate #1: Are wood frame houses unsafe in Los Angeles, such that they should either be condemned and razed, or be subject to mandatory annual LA county safety inspections? Debate #2: Are concrete houses so much safer than wood frame houses, that wood frame houses should be banned? Right now, the concrete industry is backing a bill that endorses the view "#1 No, #2 Yes". Their detractors think that their view on #2 is biased, and that it is actually "#1 No, #2 No". I think that in reality it's "#1 Yes, #2 No", and that there's not enough political will to evaluate at all whether wood frame houses need more frequent fire inspections. LA county is also in earthquake, flooding, tsunami, and wildfire territory, so any decisions that decrees one solution for all problems is automatically suspect simply for being incompetent versus the spectrum of safety scenarios available. For example, wood is more likely to survive earthquakes, while concrete is more likely to sustain damage; earthquakes happen constantly in this region, so much so that USGS has an entire California subsite dedicated to it. Cynically, I expect the concrete industry is trying to say that concrete houses won't burn in wildfires, but by the time a change in building code reaches actual newly built homes in any given area, that area will already have had it's superfire and be relatively low wildfire risk for the next couple decades (since it'll be a long time before that much dry tinder can accumulate again). The simplest way to counteract this bill would be to demand it require county inspection of all concrete homes after earthquakes, at which point the county would have to consider the real cost of structural collapse of concrete homes in salaried inspector terms, and reevaluate its stance on earthquake risk prevention versus fire risk prevention with respect to building materials. But I don't think anyone's thinking in those terms, which is unfortunate. If you live in LA, write your legislator a handwritten postal letter about it.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Tade0 5y ago
I'm starting to understand why some people go full "sovereign citizen". If I were American I would eventually go crazy from the sheer complexity of every aspect of life - complexity which is only there because there's a profit motive. Where I'm from organizations which have both "National"(or adjective referring to the nation in question) and "Association" usually settle on being a corrupt clique - without any influence in matters other than their internal ones.

clairity 5y ago

this is exactly what regulatory capture looks like, deceptive and anti-progressive (expressly without the typical political association). as such, every ballot measure should be a default 'no' unless you thoroughly understand the second- and third-order implications of the measure, not just because it sounds good on the surface.

JumpCrisscross 5y ago

Another HN comment [1] notes this source is biased. Do we have an independent source confirming this move would not improve fire safety in Los Angeles? Playing devil’s advocate, if I’m in a concrete business’s government relations office and I see a fire safety proposal that would help my company’s sales, I’m going to pitch in to help. That doesn’t necessarily mean the proposal was corruptly originated or advanced. (It does merit closer inspection.) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29299636 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29299636

DantesKite 5y ago
You also have to factor in the risk of earthquakes. Los Angeles doesn't have frequent earthquakes, but because it's near a fault-line, that tail risk has to be addressed (the same way one wears a seatbelt, even though car accidents happen only a couple times in an individual's life).
- necovek 5y ago
  I never knew that wood construction was considered safer than concrete construction when it comes to earthquakes. Even the smallest of residential houses here (Serbia) are constructed with reinforced concrete as the base and reinforced concrete pillars, with brick walls filling in between the pillars and floors and ceilings: basically, a house is a reinforced concrete box that can move independently from the ground, and that's supposed to guarantee earthquake stability (it's definitely not done for fire reasons, since roof construction is still predominantly wooden). Construction standards have been heavily modified post-1963 Skopje earthquake (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1963_Skopje_earthquake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1963_Skopje_earthquake). Buildings such as Ušće tower, built in this style, have not survived a big earthquake, but I imagine surviving a couple of tomahawk missiles is a good enough reassurance of stability: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U%C5%A1%C4%87e_Towers#NATO_bombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U%C5%A1%C4%87e_Towers#NATO_bom... (though I am fully aware that earthquakes and missiles are completely different when it comes to shocks a building experiences). Interestingly, concrete based construction is one of the cheapest around here, possibly because most houses are built that way. So I wonder, how prevalent is reinforced concrete use for houses in USA and esp California? Are there many houses and buildings built with insufficiently-reinforced concrete? I know that wood is a predominant construction choice, but what type of reinforced concrete are you comparing it to?
atomicUpdate 5y ago
It doesn’t matter if it improves fire safety, since wood frame houses are already safe to live in. There is a point of diminishing returns that a change like this clearly goes beyond.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  > doesn’t matter if it improves fire safety, since wood frame houses are already safe to live in This is tautological. Whether they’re safe to live in is the entire debate. (Wood-frame house in a suburb has a different risk profile from one in a dense neighbourhood by brush.) Safety standards evolve as the environment changes and our tolerance for risk, mediated by technology, decreases.
  - floatingatoll 5y ago
    That's one debate. There are two debates. Debate #1: Are wood frame houses unsafe in Los Angeles, such that they should either be condemned and razed, or be subject to mandatory annual LA county safety inspections? Debate #2: Are concrete houses so much safer than wood frame houses, that wood frame houses should be banned? Right now, the concrete industry is backing a bill that endorses the view "#1 No, #2 Yes". Their detractors think that their view on #2 is biased, and that it is actually "#1 No, #2 No". I think that in reality it's "#1 Yes, #2 No", and that there's not enough political will to evaluate at all whether wood frame houses need more frequent fire inspections. LA county is also in earthquake, flooding, tsunami, and wildfire territory, so any decisions that decrees one solution for all problems is automatically suspect simply for being incompetent versus the spectrum of safety scenarios available. For example, wood is more likely to survive earthquakes, while concrete is more likely to sustain damage; earthquakes happen constantly in this region, so much so that USGS has an entire California subsite dedicated to it. Cynically, I expect the concrete industry is trying to say that concrete houses won't burn in wildfires, but by the time a change in building code reaches actual newly built homes in any given area, that area will already have had it's superfire and be relatively low wildfire risk for the next couple decades (since it'll be a long time before that much dry tinder can accumulate again). The simplest way to counteract this bill would be to demand it require county inspection of all concrete homes after earthquakes, at which point the county would have to consider the real cost of structural collapse of concrete homes in salaried inspector terms, and reevaluate its stance on earthquake risk prevention versus fire risk prevention with respect to building materials. But I don't think anyone's thinking in those terms, which is unfortunate. If you live in LA, write your legislator a handwritten postal letter about it.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Tade0 5y ago

I'm starting to understand why some people go full "sovereign citizen". If I were American I would eventually go crazy from the sheer complexity of every aspect of life - complexity which is only there because there's a profit motive. Where I'm from organizations which have both "National"(or adjective referring to the nation in question) and "Association" usually settle on being a corrupt clique - without any influence in matters other than their internal ones.