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Comment by JohnMakin | Hacker News Reader

I don't really see what is an "inconvenient truth" here, and their "prevention" seems to be basically "we need better fireproofing standards in homes." The thing is, many of the homes in these areas are already fireproofed! I struggle to understand how anyone can think this is entirely preventable when you're dealing with 60+ mph winds and these kind of dry conditions. That, to me, is the inconvenient truth here - that this area may not be habitable long-term to the degree and density in which it is.

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> that this area may not be habitable long-term

Or we may have to change building materials. In Asia, houses are built using granite foundation, brick and cement walls, and concrete slab roofs. Houses built using those materials don't go up in flames.

Yes, and then we can all complain about inconvenient truths when an earthquake levels everything.

Concrete slabs have steel rods, which makes it resilient to earthquakes. In an earthquake-prone zone you will need more steel. The structure will be supported by concrete columns which also have steel.

Concrete is rampant in developing nations as it's cheap, scalable, and hardy. It is only cheap because of purchasing power parity, labor costs, resource parity. (For example, construction workers in IN are part of the servant class, and essentially are not paid. they live in the construction sites before it's completed/move on to the next.)

In the west.....a concrete/rebar home would cost more per sq foot than a modern hardwood/brick luxury home, because a contractor would have to do some pretty insane procurement, and work...a lot.

Plastics/Vinys/Composites used in the west satisfy 2 of those 3 qualities listed earlier, anyway You could even call them hardy as compared to old thatched roofs, sod walls etc.

Now.....let's be realistic. 70 MPH firestorms are historically devastating. Your concrete home in this scenario is destroyed and no longer structurally sound due to the heat stress, exploded water pipes, carcinogens. Everything is fuel when the heat/wind is that high. And if it isn't fuel, it's getting beat up by it.

I have problems with the way this fire waas handled (IE, not maintaining a properly paid wildland force or AIR corps of said force), but I really can't see mass concretization as away out. Simply put: anyone building in LA right now is on some good drugs.

- As far as labor cost, this is where we need to bring in cheap labor from south of the border, legally, on temporary visas. Win-win for everyone.

- 70 MPH firestorms: Currently houses made of wood are fuel for the fire. When houses are made of concrete and steel the fuel is taken away and fires don't spread as easily. Why don't we hear of fire devastating homes in the Middle East? Because buildings in the Middle East are constructed using concrete and steel. These materials are less likely to ignite and spread fire compared to traditional wooden structures.

Buildings in the Middle East are constructed using concrete and steel mostly because wood would need to be imported from 1000 miles away and because the thermal mass of the concrete is very useful for moderating the extremely continental climate.

Is this where I indulge my inner hippie annoyingly advocate for straw bale homes?

Inconvenient truths about the big bad wolf disaster of 2027

Or superadobe homes, the structure that broke the California seismic testing equipment: https://calearth.org/pages/what-is-superadobe

They are also fire resistant

Part of my parents neighborhood burned down in a similar (but much smaller) firestorm a number of years ago. Similar situation to the Palisades fire, where the homes were destroyed but the landscaping mostly survived. Most of the homes were built in the 70s, and almost all of those burned down. One block in the middle of the development was built in the mid-2000’s, and none of these homes were lost.

Fireproofing isnt mandatory, so people dont do it

People like lawns and shrubberies, and they hate spending even one dollar extra on roofing when they know a taxpayer-backed insurance policy will cover their substandard construction

> they hate spending even one dollar extra on roofing when they know a taxpayer-backed insurance policy will cover their substandard construction

So people would prefer to lose all of their belongings and be displaced?

You never think it's going to happen to you...

Yes.

They are clearly preferring to save their money on insurance and keep the chance to lose all their belongings and be displaced. That is a fair way to say what happens when people with the option to buy insurance don't. Including people both whose houses burnt down and whose houses didn't burn down.

In economics there is a difference between stated preferences and economic or "revealed" preferences. It shows what people say they want and what people do with their money are not always the same thing.

Sometimes especially what people say and what people do with their money differ in predictable ways.

It can be fun to juxtapose the observed behaviors with what people say. Makes for very compelling and sometimes cynical commentary.

OP added taxpayer-backed insurance policy part for fluff and/or agenda. It has zero to do with the valid part of their point:

> they hate spending even one dollar extra on roofing

replacing my roof in a low cost of living area is $25k. I can't imagine what it is down there. It's also an expense that comes up and people don't tend to plan well for. I don't think taxpayer backed insurance even comes into peoples' thoughts at all let alone their justification for lack of planning for property maintenance expense.

In my area of Southern California, fireproofing is mandatory for new construction, meaning new homes have to be built to very strict fire safety standards that get updated all the time. However, yeah, for existing homes, it's highly recommended to clear brush or whatever, but it's not mandatory.

In my experience, if you've got significant brush on your property and you don't clear it, the FD asks you to take care of it pronto.

In the middle of nowhere mountain/inland northwest insurance companies fly drones over your home and send you letters with pictures telling you changes you need to make if you want to keep your insurance. Crazy that isn't a thing in California yet.

Not sure about policing and drones in California, but I know it's extremely expensive to get home owners insurance in canyon-bordering areas. A buddy of mine couldn't get his property insured at all; he was forced to utilize some sort of state-run program, which, of course, was extremely expensive.

> Fireproofing isnt mandatory, so people dont do it

100%

> and they hate spending even one dollar extra on roofing when they know a taxpayer-backed insurance policy will cover their substandard construction

That just doesn't follow. More likely is that people building the homes (possibly on spec) are motivated by their bottom dollar, so only do what is mandatory (per your first point) or that people who own the homes simply _don't know about these mitigations_.

Blaming all behavior on a last-resort insurance fund misses a lot of steps between, and I don't think tracks to how people actually behave in the real world.

"simply _don't know about these mitigations_"

Yes, but if insurance rates were to be free of government interference, the cost of insurance might start factoring into homebuyers' research and decision processes.

While I agree that parts of the Palisades are much more difficult to protect from these events given the geography (but even then, well-built houses survived), that's just not the case as to what happened in Altadena. Most Altadena homes were built before fire prevention standards were in place, and there are tons of pictures where all the houses in a neighborhood burned but the trees are still standing.

Here is an article about homes that survived specifically due to their fire-prevention strategies, https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/property/these-homes-withst.... And note, of course nothing is 100%, but good fire prevention is like vaccination: it not only lowers your risk of catastrophe by some percentage (say 80%), but it also greatly lowers the risk of you spreading the contagion to others.

Altadena is in a tough position with the mountain wave wind it sees.

I think what is more likely to happen is people just start considering the home disposable in disaster prone areas. The land is most of the value so if you can afford to finance the cost of construction in some way, you don’t even need disaster insurance coverage to stomache the one wildfire or hurricane, if that, that might actually directly strike your property over your ownership.

Isn't this the Japanese approach to homes? They are basically disposable after X years and part of that is related to natural disasters somehow?

If this area is "not habitable", what are the chances we could ever live on Mars?

The cognitive dissonance here...

Who said we can live in Mars?

There's no cognitive dissonance here. The chances that "humans" "live" on Mars any time during the next 10,000 years is zero. Humans might live in underground habitats on Mars within a century, without being exposed to the Martian environment. Something genetically descended from humans and tailored for Martian conditions might live-ish on Mars in under a few thousand years.

Then start by living underground in California or genetically modifying Californians and see how it goes.

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