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Comment by ryanisnan | Hacker News Reader

I'm from Maui, and the reports of my family there are pretty bad. It sounds like the small town of Lahaina has had catastrophic damage to front street, which is one of the main tourist economic centres. I know of multiple heritage buildings that are completely lost.

Additionally, apparently around 80 boats in the harbor have burned. I'm trying to fathom how boats, in the harbor, have burned, but.... alas.

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Embers travel by wind ahead of a fire and are the most likely cause of structure fires. Boats likely are susceptible to catching the same embers.

I think you're right, it's just hard for me to grasp.

We've been told The Banyan Tree has been lost :(

I've only been to Lahaina once and seen the banyan tree but that just makes me incredibly sad.

As an aside, I now live in a place that regularly sees proximal wildfires, and I've thought to myself, if I ever build my own house, there is zero chance I would build it to current building standards.

Admittedly, I don't know to what standards I would build, but building mostly below ground is one.

Look at commercial zoning fire protections for your zip code and apply those standards to residential.

Additionally, use non-combustible external materials and incorporate an exterior fire suppression system that draws from your own underground water source. You'll need to have your own power source and battery backup to run these pumps. You're looking at $100k for a modest residential structure. Insurance does not give you break for having this in a residential, outside of an insurance rating with -W modifier for the water source.

Even commercial buildings are built "fire-resistant" and often built to contain interior fires (a commercial kitchen fire is a matter of when, not if).

You'd want to go beyond that to specific materials and thought thereof if you want to survive with a usable building in a wildfire - things like working out of the concrete will be stressed by the heat, etc.

Underground is a good option.

> Admittedly, I don't know to what standards I would build,

Check out Australian research

There’s a LOT you can do. Look into intumescent paint. Use it over a primer before your top coat and you can retrofit many buildings that would otherwise just torch.

You can use similar stuff for the landscape around a fire applied as it approaches.

California’s WUI code is a decent start.

Rather unintuitively, the first thing to do isn’t to worry about combustible exterior materials — it’s to worry about vents and anything else that lets embers in.

As someone who lives in the PNW and has to be aware of fire, I've recommended (and implemented) a lot of the advice outlined here:

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/built-to-burn/

ya, in socal, many of the homes that burn during an event, that aren't right in the path of a major fire, get embers into an exterior vent or they leave the garage door open, or they have a clay tile roof where embers are able to get under the tiles and ignite the wood underneath.

Look up the Australian BAL system.

There's defined protection measures for different levels of fire exposure.

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