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One solution could be to make the building code much stricter and only allow to build houses that are build with materials that could survive a wild fire much b

One solution could be to make the building code much stricter and only allow to build houses that are build with materials that could survive a wild fire much better [1]. These houses would most likely be a lot more expensive to build but could be offset by surviving wildfires. Additionally if these houses are buiild with thicker walls they can retain heat in winter and remain cool enough in summer that air-conditioning is less needed. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/12/realestate/disaster-proof-housing.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/12/realestate/disaster-proof...

Eleison23 4y ago
Why not do the opposite and build homes out of soft wood, paper, and cloth. This should drastically lower the costs of construction, and it would place no imaginary illusions on the residents that their structures could survive a disaster. Therefore the residents would be inherently better equipped, both mentally and physically, to recover from the next disaster to destroy their homestead. Is it too much to ask people to adopt a more ephemeral, nomadic lifestyle in the face of changing conditions on the ground?
- jaclaz 4y ago
  You mean people could adapt to living in yurts or gers? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yurt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yurt
jaclaz 4y ago
I don't think that - short of an underground bunker - there are fire-resistant structures that can survive a "serious" wildfire. The classification of fire-resistant is usually 30/60/90/120 minutes, meaning that the structure should not collapse before that time, but norms say nothing of the residual structure integrity, and the cost of inspecting, assessing and repairing a structure affected by a fire can in many cases exceed the cost of re-building it from the ground up. Set aside wood/timber, the other three common construction methods, steel, reinforced concrete and brick/stone masonry are all affected by the heat of a (large) fire (in the case of masonry it is the mortar that loses some of its properties), i.e. the structure won't have the same strength as before.

Eleison23 4y ago

Why not do the opposite and build homes out of soft wood, paper, and cloth. This should drastically lower the costs of construction, and it would place no imaginary illusions on the residents that their structures could survive a disaster. Therefore the residents would be inherently better equipped, both mentally and physically, to recover from the next disaster to destroy their homestead. Is it too much to ask people to adopt a more ephemeral, nomadic lifestyle in the face of changing conditions on the ground?

jaclaz 4y ago
You mean people could adapt to living in yurts or gers? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yurt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yurt

jaclaz 4y ago

I don't think that - short of an underground bunker - there are fire-resistant structures that can survive a "serious" wildfire. The classification of fire-resistant is usually 30/60/90/120 minutes, meaning that the structure should not collapse before that time, but norms say nothing of the residual structure integrity, and the cost of inspecting, assessing and repairing a structure affected by a fire can in many cases exceed the cost of re-building it from the ground up. Set aside wood/timber, the other three common construction methods, steel, reinforced concrete and brick/stone masonry are all affected by the heat of a (large) fire (in the case of masonry it is the mortar that loses some of its properties), i.e. the structure won't have the same strength as before.