Why are there so many burned down houses next to trees that appear to be unharmed?

 

Many palms do not burn well, they smolder. Think of tightly packed grass.

 

So, that deck is not flameable?

 

Probably a composite, might have melted some.

 

What about all the vehicles? Their exterior is mostly metal. Did flying burning embers ignite the tires and then it burned up into the interior?

 

The modern fuel tanks are plastic. Doesn't take much to melt them and you have all the fuel now burning underneath = melted car

 

Luck? Nope, how it was built and maintained made the difference

Owner of Maui's unscathed red house explains why it survived (googleusercontent.com)
provides real details of the house - heavy metal roof, no landscaping and so on.
View attachment 533912
Pretty stark lesson and one many of us should take to heart.

The heavy metal roof, with overhangs, will also go a long way to protect the dwelling from the increasingly larger hailstones now delivered by storms.

 

Fire protection is actually simple. Create a defensible space around the home. Not less than 30 feet. 50 feet is recommended. More if greater height of tree line. Remove vegetation over 1 inch in height and all other fuel sources in close proximity to the house. Use ignition and fire resistant building materials. If AC mains and municipal water supplies are not reliable in storms have not less than two backpack 5-gallon Indian hand pump watering cans from Grainger ready to attack spot fires. If possible maintain a cistern, pool or "water garden" to capture and store rain runoff from off of the roof and have a battery motor driven submersible pump, high pressure nozzle and 100 feet of hose to reach entirely around the house and yard to the tree line.

In high risk areas treat all exposed wood surfaces with a Class-A fire retardant spray such as www.flamestop.com Not the only reliable brand, but what fire Marshall here recommended.

 

Please note.

I saw an article that seemed to be relevant to the community here - where many face real fire dangers. I posted it for those interested. If this upset you somehow, then don't read any more posts. Facts are a bitch. But they are facts.
***
I DID NOT write the article.
I AM NOT a fire expert.

I may add additional comments...

 

Calm down.

 

Here are some other interesting points:
1) Aluminum melts at 1250'F (Cr wheels)
2) Forest fires don't reach above 800-900'F (Higher if enough fuel and certain conditions are met)
An average surface fire on the forest floor might have flames reaching 1 metre in height and can reach temperatures of 800°C (1,472°F) or more. Under extreme conditions a fire can give off 10,000 kilowatts or more per metre of fire front. This would mean flame heights of 50 metres or more and flame temperatures exceeding 1200°C (2,192°F).
3) The timeline is vague, but even if the heat reached over 1200'F it shouldn't have held that heat for any significant length of time to melt car wheels.
Not enough fuel or wind to keep a high level of heat above 1200'F.
Most of the beachfront places are literally vaporized.
4) If the heat stayed at the level to melt metal, then most cars would have been molten to some degrees. (Steel-2500'F)
I'm not convinced of DEW's theory, but there are other "weapons/devices" that can destroy materials easily. (Sonic/microwave/laser/EM Pulse)

IF the tires are burning & especially IF the wheels contain magnesium, they're likely going to burn IME

 

The people who rebuild in that neighborhood may want to emulate the only house left standing.

Although I think entities such as Blackrock view this disaster as a fire sale (literally) and are ready to swoop in (if they haven't already) and buy up the now scorched and vacant building lots.

 

I heard Oprah's house mysteriously survived as well.

Sent from my SM-S906U using Tapatalk

 

The high loss of life and property is mainly due to failure to observe basic fire protection precautions. Complacency kills.

While California level wildfire precautions would not have averted the tragedy, they would have reduced loss of life and property damage.

The Gatlinburg fire a few years ago was an education for Appalachia and prompted me to take basic precautions when having the yard cleared and the house re-roofed. I got a substantial reduction in my homeowner's insurance premiums for documenting the work.

 

Gasoline from an old fashioned fossil fueled car might generate some heat too.
😉

 

When a couple of towns have burnt down up here ,some houses were not touched and everything around then was burnt to a crisp. It's just random luck.

 

You see that in big wild fires too. Stands of trees left not burned.

 

A friend of mine's son lived there and his and a few neighbor's homes all survived. They were surrounded by total destruction. Not sure if this made a difference but their homes were on slightly higher ground.

 

The trees have moisture in them and do not burn as easily as dry wood.

Before it is said, "But green trees in the forest burn"
Pine trees in the forest have alot of pitch in them and are a huge fuel source.

 

A combination of the new metal roof and landscaping, and luck.

I noticed it looks like an open area on one side of them too.

 

Defensible space should be cleared of vegetation at a minimum equal to height of trees and vegetation at the tree line. Thirty feet as a minimum, with 50 feet or more recommended in higher risk areas.

California precautions are more stringent. This was local guidance from West Virginia Div. of Forestry for mid-Atlantic woodlands.

 

View attachment 533912


Location, metal roof, no shrubs or plants around the house and wind direction.

If you look at the photo and think about it, the fire came from either across the street or next door (to the left in the photo) if it came from across the street there was one big tree blocking a lot of the embers from hitting the house, the houses that burned next door do not show any signs of having a tree at the edge of the street. If the fire came from next door there were many more trees to help block the embers from hitting the house.
The house had a new metal roof so none of the embers could catch there.
The house had the landscaping removed during renovations so no shrubs or plants around the base of the house to catch fire.
The back porch (lanai) was on the sea side so it had the entire house blocking embers from hitting it. The wind would not have been blowing the fire up from the ocean... the fire had to have come from the other sides and since the plot to the right still has green shrubs (or something green) growing along the shoreline. I suspect the fire came from the top left corner of the house and the house itself protected that part of the adjacent plot.

 

Therre was a time that insurance companies would not insure a metal roof.

 

She was on a different part of the island that didn't have the fires.

I heard Oprah's house mysteriously survived as well.

Sent from my SM-S906U using Tapatalk

 

But now there is some new land up for grabs.....for the rich to buy on sale.

 

Firewise program- research it for guidelines on how to mitigate wildfire risk.

 

Monolithic Dome saves man from fire | Monolithic.org

Concrete house - I see these as a great choice in fire prone areas.

Monolithic Dome in Oklahoma wild fire.mov - YouTube
Oklahoma News Channel 6 newscast with story of Monolithic Dome that survived a wildfire.

Interested?
Monolithic Dome Institute

Quite a few in Alaska
Morrisett Dome Home in Alaska | Monolithic.org
very energy efficient.

 

I posted this on the other thread but some of you might find the links interesting. They seem to answer a lot of the questions here.



This is pretty much a repeat of the story in the 1993 Laguna Beach fire of the one house that survived the wildfire when the whole neighborhood burned down.

What Saved The 'Miracle House' In Lahaina? - Honolulu Civil Beat

The historic structure on Front Street is the last house standing in a neighborhood reduced to rubble.

www.civilbeat.org

Except in the case of Laguna Beach in 1993 the house was deliberately built by its engineer owner to survive wildfire. The 1998 follow up story shows that nothing was learned. And the OC Reg story from 2017 tells the same kind of story.

They Built Home to Defeat Fire : Survival: The uninsured home of the To Bui-Doris Bender family was still standing amid chaos and destruction of its Laguna neighborhood.

Doris Bender cleaned ants out of the refrigerator of her unscathed four-bedroom home Friday while, all around her, dazed neighbors searched through the ashes of what once had been similar luxury residences on the scorched Mystic Hills ridge.

www.latimes.com

In Home That Survived, Joy Flickered Out

It seemed a miracle house.

www.latimes.com

Do we live in Hades? Southern California housing is built for survival in fires

More than 300,000 Southern California houses are exposed to high wildfire risks. But modern design and building techniques and limit the number of homes that burn…. “Topanga Canyon should be …

www.ocregister.com

Often simple changes can make a property more wildfire resistant. And if the firefighters see this they will make an extra effort to save it. Because it can usually can be saved.

At least in the interviews I've seen with the firechiefs they are very upfront about this. When assessing where to make a stand in a neighborhood in front of a wildfire if a property owner has made the property more wildfire resistant thats where the firetruck will stop. But if a property has old shingle roofs etc with landscaping, brush and trees all the way to the side of the buildings then they will usually just move on to the next property which has a better chance of being saved. Wildfire property triage.

 

True but also add in a source of water ( that is accessible to the engine unless it carries a floto pump or eductor), defensable space for the fire truck with the ability to cover the whole house with <200’ of hose and/or a safe evacuation routes. Propane tank better be on the other side of the house or down hill ( or really well landscaped) The homeowner laddering their house helps. Only structural and type 3/4 engines have ladders ( though we have a little giant on our T5 brush truck) The house at the end of an uphill road is unlikely to get a crew to stick arround either.

For the responder to commit to save the house, you have to let the fire front pass- then you take a few minutes to ensure no fire entered the attic, eaves, decks, etc, and extinguish or remove any burning fuel near the house. so it needs to be pretty defensible ( if I’m risking my life, my crews life, and a $100,000 to 500,000 engine.). I worry a lot less about the evacuation route here in the south than they do out west. BTW, I wont even drive down that road if I don’t know I can turn around, and ideally pass a vehicle. Wood bridges are a concern. So the most fire safe house can be ruined by the neighborhood. Flip side is we saved an unsavable house in a fire becase they had a 25,000 gal swimming pool. We had two 2.5” fog nozzles and a 1-1/2 combo nozzle all going when it hit. The house had a overgrown pasture 10’ high in fuel 40-50‘ from the house- flames were 50 ‘ high.

 

I'm thinking that the space between houses made a big difference. I'm sure that our house would not have burned in the Camp Fire if the house next door hadn't been so close.

We knew a guy on the local fire department that built his house with 18" thick concrete walls, metal roof and metal framed inside. The problem was, he was right on the canyon and the wind was blowing the flames like a forge, blew the windows out and gutted the whole house.

 

Yeah you need steel shutters and sprinklers spraying on the house .

 

Seems I remember a masonry structure with iron shutters from San Francisco earthquake and fire after. Structure survived but people aphixiated.
Many old Hawaiian houses were poorly built, no stud construction or insulation, just panel walls. This was pre 60s, early 70s, don'twas know about later.

 

Lasers only hit certain colors from DEW,s.
Just a guess