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Comment by mschuster91 | Hacker News Reader

> Building codes failed to address the requirements of specific environments, and infrastructure was laid out without attending to potential hazard.

Well, yeah. Americans tend to laugh at European construction codes, label us with words suggesting we live in a dictatorship... but with every report I see from the newest natural disaster in the US, be it fires, floods or hurricanes, I'm happy that building codes are very very strict here.

> For example, municipal and fire prevention agencies must give property owners advance — and continual — warnings to clear dead vegetation and to wet dry brush within 10 feet of the house with periodic, prolonged sprinklings.

Try that with your average American and the poor sod tasked with doing that will be at best yelled at with "leave my property", and that's assuming they can inspect the property to begin with.

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Maybe not average, but in Oakland after the ‘91 fire we now have yearly inspections, including overflying drones and helicopters as well as foot inspections of our properties. They alert us if we have any problematic vegetation, most especially accumulated dead brush or trees that need to be trimmed to keep them out of power lines. We have to address them or we will be fined. I’m not sure beyond that what happens, I haven’t gotten one of the fines, we keep our greenery pretty controlled, as do our neighbors. Maybe it’s because you can still regularly meet people who lived through that fire, but no one is crying “‘Murica!” when the firemen come by here.

The other thing that is subtle and maybe not obvious about American culture — firemen generally are not lumped in with the rest of the government. Police are looked at with extreme suspicion very frequently, but firemen are just generally liked. Yes there are people who don’t want anyone on their property that they didn’t invite, and in some states those people have the law behind them (I grew up in Texas), but firemen coming by to let you know that your property has too many trees near the home are probably the least likely to be shouted off. There is one group, though, that doesn’t want to hear the message - the wealthy. Often they have an image in their head of how they want their house to look and what kind of landscaping they want, never mind what best practice is. They will listen politely and then completely ignore the advice they get because it would keep them from having the picture perfect English cottage look, or maybe they’d have to see their neighbors in their winter ski chalet, or whatever it is that’s in their head. When the Tahoe area has a fire like this, it will be because of these attitudes, 100%.

NA has far more natural disaster exposure than europe does, especially when people just like to subset to the richest western european states as ‘europe’.

i seem to recall quite a few buildings collapsing in Turkey and in Greece in the last quarter century after earthquakes

> NA has far more natural disaster exposure than europe does

Agreed, but that's even more of a sign for "the US should be even more proactive in regulations and enforcement than Europe, not the other way around!

In any case we do have areas that are prone to wildfire, especially the Balkans, Greece and Turkey get hit regularly and hard. But the human toll is always very low even if the fires rage, because our buildings don't consist out of the cheapest sort of wood and cardboard and there is ample distance between homes and forests.

> i seem to recall quite a few buildings collapsing in Turkey and in Greece in the last quarter century after earthquakes

Yup, and in almost all cases it turns out that either the owners intentionally circumvented the code or construction was shoddy because someone diverted money and substituted cheaper but unallowed materials.

Our greatest issue tends to be floods like in the Ahrtal or the beginning of Spain, because our building and zoning codes haven't caught up with climate change. Unfortunately, what I call "Americanism" (or y'all "American Exceptionalism") seems to have seeped into our culture as well - the attitude that humans are superior to nature's forces and can bend them to their will, and so I'm afraid history is doomed to repeat itself.

Taxing people and protecting everyone from fires by imposing regulations is of course socialism. /s

Get ready for a political reaction in the form of privatised firefighting. Drones and helicopters. Not cheap. Altho this proposal might encounter resistance from the real fire department, which neeeds unimpeded access to the skies.

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