Time for new building codes in California

Don't build in areas where natural wildfires are likely. Problem solved!

No other codes required.

a reply to: Wildbob77

Years ago, when I was in construction, there was an article in Fine Homebuilding about the Oakland fire. A whole hillside of homes burned. There was one engineer who had decided that he wanted his house to be fire safe. He put heavy plaster on the outside including the soffits and gables. He of course had a fire proof roof, but also added spark suppression to his vents. He kept vegetation away from the house.

The hillside looked like Hiroshima with one untouched white house standing in the middle.

I think there ought to be a class action suite by all home owners against the state of California. It is possible to build fire proof and it's not expensive.

The Moroccan city of Fez which has a climate similar to CA, a city of 2 million hardly has firetrucks. There was one fire while I was there. The contents of a shop burned up, but the building was hardly damaged. Everything is make of cement.


Recently, in SW Florida, they had a "controlled burn". Unfortunately, they waited til late spring when everything was bone dry. Thousands of acres burned out of control. The Indians used to do controlled burns. They didn't wait until the whole world would burn.

California is controlled by idiots. Perhaps they deserve what they are getting.

As many of you have pointed out, it's not just how you build the house but also how the area is laid out to keep the fire away from the house to begin with.

Perhaps in these areas, the distance between houses needs to be greater. Also, the vegetation needs to help resist fire. If you have a rock garden, it's not going to burn.

Also, if the streets have wider easements and vegetation is not allowed in the easements then the fire can't get so close to the houses.

It is a complex issue but I do think that smart builders and designers could come up with a set of guild lines for building in fire prone areas.

The main issue is of course money. If you are a developer you want to have as many lots available to sell as possible. If building codes are changed so you can only have half as many lots in your subdivision, then your profit just went way down
If it costs an extra $50,000 to build a house there will be fewer prospective buyers.

Money money money.

But if you think about it how much did this fire cost our society?