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Yes, I'm also looking at buying a house in California, but I too am afraid to buy a home anywhere that could realistically burn in the next 10-30 years. It's a

Yes, I'm also looking at buying a house in California, but I too am afraid to buy a home anywhere that could realistically burn in the next 10-30 years. It's a shame since it rules out many of the best (and more affordable) areas of the state.

sliken 5y ago
Designing a house to survive a fire isn't that hard. You need a defensible space, pick the right materials (don't go with cheap wood tile that takes 1 oz of burning pine needles to light, like in Paradise CA). If in a particularly high risk area I've seen insurance require things like a watering system for the roof, including onsite water (not depending on water pressure) and pump (not requiring grid power). Not a particularly big expense if designing a new home. The main problem with these big fires is they can send sparks for a good ways, and most roofs (even with no trees nearby) end up with leaves and/or pine needles collect in the roof, which are great tinder for starting the house on fire. If 50 homes light up within 20 minutes the fire departments are helpless, which then of course starts the cycle anew with a new launch of embers.
njarboe 5y ago
Almost everywhere in California could burn in the next 10-30 years. Huge fires around LA every year. The Oakland hills fire burned down thousands of homes. Santa Rosa burned twice in three years. Santa Cruz, etc. Maybe somewhere in the central valley or the Mojave desert would meet your requirements.
- throwaway48375 5y ago
  The desert burns too. Source: I live there
  - njarboe 5y ago
    I guess much of the land that burns around L.A. is classified as a desert by some. I was thinking more of the Mohave or Death Valley areas where there is much less fuel to burn and preventing structures from burning is a bit easier.
    - throwaway48375 5y ago
      I live in the Mojave desert. Fires are a real problem here. I know people who have lost their homes because of them. We tend to have low humidity and high winds which are a bad combo. The desert isn't all sand dunes like people think. The dry brush burns really well. Here is what it looks like when it goes. https://i.imgur.com/VJ7ENis.jpg https://i.imgur.com/VJ7ENis.jpg
bonestamp2 5y ago
Some of this may be obvious (especially after you read it) so I apologize if this comment is unhelpful... The fires typically start in open spaces, so if your house is right next to open space, you're at a high risk of fire (and this is basically how your fire insurance rates are determined). Your best protection against fire is other houses. If the fire has to burn through 500 other houses to reach yours, chances are very high that the fire will be stopped by that time. It's pretty rare for that many structures to be lost in a fire, and from a personal safety standpoint, you'll typically be long gone by the time that happens.
- tlavoie 5y ago
  I'd love to see a source for these statements, because it directly contradicts what I've seen in the Fire Smart BC (https://firesmartbc.ca/ https://firesmartbc.ca/) materials. I won't claim to be an expert, but am a local volunteer firefighter who has gone through some wildfire training. Forest fires create their own weather, including winds that drive burning embers ahead of the blaze, raining firebrands all over everything. Having numerous houses between the fire and your place just means the firefighters are already busy. The response to this is a combination of building material selection and landscaping. Basically, you want to keep a 10m zone around your house as free of flammable materials as possible, and try to thin things out beyond this priority zone. Don't use bark mulch in the flower beds beside the house, and don't run that wooden fence right up to the house. Clean your eaves troughs of dead leaves. Wherever leaves and junk collect from the wind, burning embers will too. I also have a couple of these mounted at the peak ends at my roof, with hoses I can connect and leave if needed: https://waspwildfire.com/products/gutter-mount-sprinkler-system/ https://waspwildfire.com/products/gutter-mount-sprinkler-sys... A department colleague used to fly fire suppression missions all summer long. He was able to spot the fire-smart places easily, because the massive fires appeared to "go around", and the homes were still there.
  - bonestamp2 5y ago
    > Having numerous houses between the fire and your place just means the firefighters are already busy. The response to this is a combination of building material selection and landscaping. I generally agree with everything you stated, I think we're just talking about different scales. Instead of several houses, I was talking about having several subdivisions ("500 houses") between your house and the open space. It has happened, but it is not the average fire that starts in an open space and burns through several subdivisions. Structure protection is often the highest priority in those cases and the fire doesn't usually get too deep into a subdivision. When that does happen, there is almost no prep you could have done to save your house, because as you mentioned, the natural forces that create that kind of situation are virtually unstoppable -- as we recently saw in Colorado (Marshall), or California in 2018 (Woolsey), and Ft McMurray in 2016. My point was, for your average fire that can be fought with enough water/phos-chek/etc, being as far away from that open space is your best protection. That's obvious to us now, but I didn't think about it when I first moved to California, so I wanted to put that on OP's radar.

sliken 5y ago

Designing a house to survive a fire isn't that hard. You need a defensible space, pick the right materials (don't go with cheap wood tile that takes 1 oz of burning pine needles to light, like in Paradise CA). If in a particularly high risk area I've seen insurance require things like a watering system for the roof, including onsite water (not depending on water pressure) and pump (not requiring grid power). Not a particularly big expense if designing a new home. The main problem with these big fires is they can send sparks for a good ways, and most roofs (even with no trees nearby) end up with leaves and/or pine needles collect in the roof, which are great tinder for starting the house on fire. If 50 homes light up within 20 minutes the fire departments are helpless, which then of course starts the cycle anew with a new launch of embers.

njarboe 5y ago

Almost everywhere in California could burn in the next 10-30 years. Huge fires around LA every year. The Oakland hills fire burned down thousands of homes. Santa Rosa burned twice in three years. Santa Cruz, etc. Maybe somewhere in the central valley or the Mojave desert would meet your requirements.

throwaway48375 5y ago
The desert burns too. Source: I live there
- njarboe 5y ago
  I guess much of the land that burns around L.A. is classified as a desert by some. I was thinking more of the Mohave or Death Valley areas where there is much less fuel to burn and preventing structures from burning is a bit easier.
  - throwaway48375 5y ago
    I live in the Mojave desert. Fires are a real problem here. I know people who have lost their homes because of them. We tend to have low humidity and high winds which are a bad combo. The desert isn't all sand dunes like people think. The dry brush burns really well. Here is what it looks like when it goes. https://i.imgur.com/VJ7ENis.jpg https://i.imgur.com/VJ7ENis.jpg

bonestamp2 5y ago

Some of this may be obvious (especially after you read it) so I apologize if this comment is unhelpful... The fires typically start in open spaces, so if your house is right next to open space, you're at a high risk of fire (and this is basically how your fire insurance rates are determined). Your best protection against fire is other houses. If the fire has to burn through 500 other houses to reach yours, chances are very high that the fire will be stopped by that time. It's pretty rare for that many structures to be lost in a fire, and from a personal safety standpoint, you'll typically be long gone by the time that happens.

tlavoie 5y ago
I'd love to see a source for these statements, because it directly contradicts what I've seen in the Fire Smart BC (https://firesmartbc.ca/ https://firesmartbc.ca/) materials. I won't claim to be an expert, but am a local volunteer firefighter who has gone through some wildfire training. Forest fires create their own weather, including winds that drive burning embers ahead of the blaze, raining firebrands all over everything. Having numerous houses between the fire and your place just means the firefighters are already busy. The response to this is a combination of building material selection and landscaping. Basically, you want to keep a 10m zone around your house as free of flammable materials as possible, and try to thin things out beyond this priority zone. Don't use bark mulch in the flower beds beside the house, and don't run that wooden fence right up to the house. Clean your eaves troughs of dead leaves. Wherever leaves and junk collect from the wind, burning embers will too. I also have a couple of these mounted at the peak ends at my roof, with hoses I can connect and leave if needed: https://waspwildfire.com/products/gutter-mount-sprinkler-system/ https://waspwildfire.com/products/gutter-mount-sprinkler-sys... A department colleague used to fly fire suppression missions all summer long. He was able to spot the fire-smart places easily, because the massive fires appeared to "go around", and the homes were still there.
- bonestamp2 5y ago
  > Having numerous houses between the fire and your place just means the firefighters are already busy. The response to this is a combination of building material selection and landscaping. I generally agree with everything you stated, I think we're just talking about different scales. Instead of several houses, I was talking about having several subdivisions ("500 houses") between your house and the open space. It has happened, but it is not the average fire that starts in an open space and burns through several subdivisions. Structure protection is often the highest priority in those cases and the fire doesn't usually get too deep into a subdivision. When that does happen, there is almost no prep you could have done to save your house, because as you mentioned, the natural forces that create that kind of situation are virtually unstoppable -- as we recently saw in Colorado (Marshall), or California in 2018 (Woolsey), and Ft McMurray in 2016. My point was, for your average fire that can be fought with enough water/phos-chek/etc, being as far away from that open space is your best protection. That's obvious to us now, but I didn't think about it when I first moved to California, so I wanted to put that on OP's radar.