Emails and videos from buildings burned in Los Angeles alongside those left standing, there was back and forth among architects, builders and fire safety specialists from around the world.
For many owners, like Enrique Balcazar, the sometimes scattered nature of the carnage can seem like happenstance. Balcazar, a real estate agent, posted a video showing little more than the remaining chimneys of most homes in his neighborhood after a fire ravaged his Altadena neighborhood. Balcazar stood on top of his neighbor’s wrecked classic Mustang to put out his burning roof, but his house was otherwise fine.
“It’s an older house and it still has its old wood siding,” Balcazar said. “To me, there is no logical or scientific explanation as to why my house would not have burned.”
Many experts say luck plays a role. After all, the wind can turn 180 degrees in a split second, pushing the fire away from your house and toward a neighbor’s. But they also say that there is many ways to make homes less vulnerable to pull.
“Because there are, say, 50 ways a fire can burn your house,” said Greg Faulkner of Faulkner Architects in California, who has focused on less combustible home exteriors for more than a decade. “If you eliminate half of them, or three-quarters, it’s not luck, it increases your chances.”
Residents of fire-affected areas are generally aware that trees, landscaping and wooden fences near homes can pose a fire hazard. Architects and contractors are going further, using newer materials and techniques for roofing, walls and windows to keep buildings standing. The measures add costs to homes — about 3 to 6 percent, Faulkner said, or up to 10 percent for the strongest protection.
Many of these experts no longer use wood cladding. Where it is used, or even permitted, it must have a fire-retardant barrier underneath, often made of gypsum, the same material used to make drywall. This way, if the wood catches fire, it takes longer for the heat to reach the interior of the house.
But even with that, you’re still putting a combustible material on the building, said Richard Schuh, of Nielsen: Schuh Architects. “So that would be something we would avoid.” The use of fire-resistant materials is essential.
Stucco, a cement-based material, is a common exterior for Southern California homes and is fire-resistant. Examining AP photographs showing buildings still standing, Arnold Tarling, who has four decades of experience in fire protection and building inspection in Britain, said the stucco-walled houses looked better survive the Los Angeles fires. Still, if more of them had had a layer of gypsum under the stucco, it would have given better protection from the heat, he said.
Windows are a significant factor in a home’s fire risk because they transmit a large amount of heat. Double-glazed windows significantly slow down the heat coming from the burning building next door.
“The outer layer protects the inner layer until it fails,” Schuh said. In many places, codes require one of the two panes to be tempered, which is much more heat-resistant than conventional glass, he explained.
Tarling noted an intact beachfront house in Malibusurrounded by gutted buildings. He theorized that having no windows facing a neighbor helped protect them, because radiated heat couldn’t penetrate as easily.
In his buildings, Faulkner builds fire shutters that can close and cover the windows.
Then there’s the roof, a convenient landing area for embers.
Simpler rooflines can allow glowing embers to slide off. Spanish Mission, for example, is an iconic style of Los Angeles – part of what says “Hollywood” in films about the city, for example, as well as a reminder of its Mexican and Spanish history. This style doesn’t always have simple rooflines: the knee walls that are common on Mission style roofs create corners.
“The embers could, just like the snow, accumulate in that corner,” Faulkner said.
Many roofs in the United States are covered with asphalt. Areas designated as wildfire-prone in California – an ever-expanding area – must use roofing that retards the transfer of heat to the interior of the building, called one-hour or Class A.
However, asphalt is a petroleum product. Some building professionals prefer metal, which does not burn. Metal, however, has its own drawback: it conducts heat. Putting a layer of gypsum under a metal roof is becoming a common practice in certain regions.
Perhaps as important as the material used on a roof is whether the roof provides a means for fire to enter. Here, as in so many other compromises, one effort to do good conflicts with another: entrepreneurs have been more careful over the years to do good. Make sure moisture doesn’t build up in attics by ensuring air circulates, using the vents visible on many roofs or under eaves.
But in a powerful fire, Schuh says, “if you’re on the side where the wind is pressing against the house, it also blows the flames into the house like a blowtorch,” and the fire enters through the vents .
On the other side of the house, it can create a vacuum, several experts said, attracting fire.
But you can’t just eliminate roof ventilation, because it would lead to moisture problems, said Cesar Martin Gomez, an architect at the University of Navarra, Spain, who has worked in building services for 25 years.
Faulkner said in some buildings it eliminates the need for ventilation in the roof structure by sealing the gaps. Schuh uses a cover on the roof vents that can actually respond to the fire with a screen that closes.
Martin Gomez pointed out that in some parts of Australia new homes must be equipped with water tanks. “If every house had the ability to protect itself, the fire wouldn’t be able to spread as much,” he said.
And some homes in the United States are now built with sprinkler systems for the exterior of the home, not just the interior. It sprays water with a soapy solution to run it over the surface of the building, Schuh said.
“You’re adding an extra layer of protection to your building, and that’s more of a priority than ever because your insurance company may or may not be there for you,” he said.
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