I will freely admit that wild fires scare me. Living in urban South Florida, the chances of being involved on one are practically zero. Ask me about hurricane prep and I will fill your ear. But ask me fire and I will become a functional mute.
I bumped into this video about houses that survived Camp Fire and it was illuminating.
Then I checked on the recommended video that popped after the first.
As usual, a bunch of common sense followed by preparations that go from zero cost to not so much to ouchie. And still it will never be 100% guarantee, but I’ll take 50% rather than zero.
Tangentially related: I never understood why US-houses are built out of wood and the equivalent of spit and paper.
Is brick and mortar that expensive?
Compared to wood? yes. Plus wood offers a natural insulation.
Wood is a pretty shitty insulator. But yeah, bricks are expensive and slower to build.
But I’m always amazed at how much you guys rely on wood.
I mean, after we Germans got away from timber-framed buildings the only problems we had with building fires happened because some Allies dropped phosphor bombs on our cities 😛
But anyway. Brick houses aren’t fireproof either.
Also, you can build much faster with wood. A shell goes up a few days. A brick house has to be built brick by brick, each laid down by hand. I don’t know about skills involved; it may well be that building a brick structure is harder.
In Holland, where I grew up, houses are normally built from brick. It takes a while. It’s done because trees are scarce and clay (for brick) is delivered by the Rhine each year free for the digging-up.
As for insulation, a common practice is to build a double wall with an air gap, filled with foam in newer construction. But insulation isn’t as critical in Holland as it is, say, in NH.
The United States and Canada have a lot of forests, making lumber incredibly cheap. We also have a lot of space – most individual states are large than most European countries and the population density is far lower. As a result, Americans and Canadians tend to live in much larger homes… Simply because we’ve got the space to do it.
More square footage of brick scales in price significantly faster than more square footage of lumber _and_ the lumber was cheaper to start.
Geography is destiny.
Brick houses do not do as well in earthquake prone areas (like the West Coast) as wood does. Earthquakes seem more common (certainly more widespread) than uncontrolled fires.
A wood frame house can be made fire resistant with the right exterior materials. A standing seam metal roof won’t ignite from stray embers like cedar shingles and has an added benefit of preventing ice dams. Cement board siding or brick veneer also helps, along with a defensible area.
Back when Florida would burn during the summers, and houses were made from heart pine, the old advice was to plow a good firebreak around your property (and your turpentine pines).