Comment by cols | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cols | Hacker News Reader

Beautiful house and there was a day I would have been extremely jealous but...

I live in Oregon and in 2020 chose to (was not officially in an evac zone but the smoke was awful) evacuate when the horrible Beachie Creek and Lionshead [0] fires ripped through the Santiam Canyon. Houses that my wife and I had looked at possibly purchasing were torched, as well as some of the most pristine ancient forest I've seen [1].

My outlook about living in the forest drastically changed after these events. The Beachie Creek fire reached 130,000 acres overnight at a growth rate of 2.77 acres per SECOND. [2].

You couldn't pay me enough money to live in a forest at this point. It's just too damn dangerous. Also, the flat roof seems problematic. Everyone I know in the PNW who has owned a flat roof has had issues with it due to pooling water. That far north, I imagine snow accumulation would also be a really big problem in terms of stress on the roof.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santiam_Fire

[1] - https://www.opb.org/article/2021/09/02/oregon-field-guide-op...

[2] - https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/7001/

I live in the forest in rural norcal and everything you say rings true. We had a huge fire come within 3 miles of us last year. This year's obviously going to be just as bad given the prolonged dry winter. The neighborhood is aggressively managing the fire risk, yet it seems it'll never be enough.

It can happen anywhere though. I have immediate family who lost their home to a fire last year - they lived in a town of 20,000 people, among grasslands in the suburbs.

IMHO California and PNW homes need to be rethought, starting now - much like how we stopped using unreinforced bricks due to earthquakes. Stop building houses out of flammable materials. Use intumescent coatings. Intentionally fireproof your landscaping. I was hoping that was the focus of this article but.. nope.

>"Use intumescent coatings."

Can you say what would be some good and/or practical choices for this?

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.

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.

The desert burns too.

Source: I live there

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.

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

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.

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/) 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-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.

> 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.

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.

Funny, I've actually considered buying property in that area now that it's been cleared of houses. With a bit of planning, it should be possible to make it more resistant to another wildfire roaring through. I'd still build myself a couple of contingency plans anyway, of course, and buy good insurance.

Good luck to you! It is truly beautiful out there, even still. If you clear out an acre or two around your house and have some kind of fire line you'd probably be fine. I'd be concerned about the road to your house and how accessible it is to a major hwy.

Several folks died after being trapped on North Fork Rd and it's not hard to see why. It's a super tight, two lane road that goes for miles and miles. After the fire started, there were apparently miles of treefall up and down the road. No way you get out from that even on a dirt bike.

Unfortunately even a clear couple of acres won't protect against ember attack. The house can be built to be fully fire-resistant and you're still faced with stay-or-go decisions when the next fire arrives.

Do American houses in risky areas have roof-sprinkler systems? To keep the roof wet to deny embers a foothold?

https://www.google.com/search?q=roof+sprinkler+fire+australi...

They're starting to be required on most Maine homes. I don't know all the details, but it came up recently in a discussion with my builder.

I think this link is for commercial, but there's something analogous...

https://www.mainelegislature.org/legis/statutes/25/title25se...

Pemberton had historically high snowfall last month, followed by a massive rain event. If the roof didn't have issues in January it's probably not going to have issues for a very long time. Pemberton is in a rain shadow. Owl creek gets some snow, more than town, but not much. Much less than Whistler.

Fully agree on the fires. I live in the woods on a steep slope and it's not ideal. Pemberton has insane fire risk. The pool might help with that, you can get agricultural water cannons and use the pool water to soak the roof and surrounding land.

Why not build with concrete and stucco?

You could but would it make enough of a difference? Having the structure remain standing, but the entire landscape be totally destroyed (including all major infrastructure like power) doesn't seem like much of a victory.

Not to mention a large portion of damage from wildfires is smoke damage, which your concrete house isn't immune to.

A fully concrete/steel home would likely remain structurally sound, but you're still dealing with intense property damage for everything inside and most probably uninhabitability due to lost infrastructure in the area.

Not to mention during a wildfire you'd still have to evacuate.

My property (rural acreage an hour north of SF) burned twice in the last two years. Black hills everywhere. But looking around now you'd never notice.

Whether or not your home burns makes a huge difference. PG&E had the poles replaced in a week. If you've cut and mowed defensible space, your house will be fine and life goes on like normal. The problem is, folks love their tree-shaded homes and love building at the tops of ridges.

At least in my district, mandatory evacuation is not actually mandatory and (I say this as a firefighter) we aren't going to force you off your property. Especially if it looks like you're prepared. But you really need to be prepared. It's not hopeless - you really can make a huge difference but you have to put the work in long before the fire arrives.

Aside from all the big prep ahead of time, when we evacuate for a fire, is there anything we should be doing at the time of evacuation to help our house survive or easier to partially save... leave interior doors open/closed, leave drapes open/closed, leave hall lights on for firefighters or off to prevent electrical shorts, etc? I've also heard that the fire hydrants are typically on a different water infrastructure from household supply... is that true? If that's true, should I turn my lawn sprinklers on to help make my landscaping less flammable?

https://www.fire.ca.gov/media/5414/beforeduringafter.pdf

Shut all windows and doors to keep embers out. Open or remove flammable window treatments like drapes, but if you have nonflammable (ie metal) blinds keep them closed.

Related preparation: Make sure your soffit and attic vents have screens, and keep the gutters free of leaf litter (install gutter guards!).

Leave the electricity alone. The fire may never approach your home and you never know how long you'll be gone, it could be days and it sucks returning to a fridge full of rotten food. Power will probably go off for the neighborhood anyway.

Spend a little time cleaning up the area around your house. Move flammable items (furniture, toys, etc) either into the garage or away from the house. Shut off the valve at your propane tank, if you have one.

Assuming a rural district like ours, make the location of a garden hose next to the house really obvious. We go from house to house, defending each in turn as the flame front passes over. A brush truck holds ~300 gallons of water, which doesn't last long. Throwing a hose in the tank to top up while we wait delays the need to stop and refill (or call for a water tender, which might be busy).

I don't know the answer to your question about hydrant infrastructure, that sounds like something that will vary locally. In my district almost everyone is on well. Is your landscaping dry fuel or green grass? Personally I have an impact sprinkler on my roof and turn it on as soon as I hear about fire, in an hour the surrounds are saturated. Unless you hear otherwise from an official source, I'd start the sprinklers.

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