Why Isn't CA Fireproof?

Yep. The process of curing concrete leaves air pockets in it. When it gets quickly heated the air trapped inside expands much faster than the concrete and boom. I first became aware of this when I was helping armor coat some steel rods. Part of that process involved heating the rods red hot. One day one of the red hot rods fooled of the table and hit the concrete floor. There was this odd popping sound and there was a crevice in the floor about an inch and a half across and about ten feet long and about a 1/4 inch deep.

 

Wildfires and earthquakes are usually pretty destructive yet people still like to build in the riskiest places, no learning curve I guess. All real estate in California should be priced out of the range of the lower and middle classes that way only Hollywood people, Silicon valley types and politicians could afford to live there. When the big one hits we could all stand on the shore of Nevada and throw them a Bon Voyage party. Corona's in hand we could toss streamers and confetti if the wind was right.

 

It will be admitted, such was not known.

 

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Sorry Alek, I can only report what I've read.

 

The mere presence of moisture does not immunize something from fire.

 

earthquakes?

 

I vividly remember our first trip to Southern California. Once we left LAX and headed away from the city I couldn't get over the hills, which were literally hills of hay. Dryer than the horse hay in barn loft. That was the first time I got a feel for exactly why the fires are so severe.

 

I work for an electrical utility.

There are plenty of negative with burying electrical cables. First, it makes maintenance way more difficult. Second, especially with higher voltage, when cable are exposed to humidity they tend to produce hydrogen, which can in the right condition accumulate in maintenance access point and cause explosion. We had a couple in downtown Montreal in the early 90's.

Finally, relatively few fires are caused by faulty electrical equipment if said equipment is well cared for and installed intelligently. This isn't always the case, especially in the US where you have many different utilities competing and privately owned.

 

Probably to save the Rocky mountain, spotted beetle or some such.

 

i was always baffled as to why brick/cbs are not more popular in CA, I assumed that wood was just more plentiful and therefore less expensive so it was preferred.

I'd want brick for sure, those chimney's are still standing!

my city, is about 70% overhead power including my neighborhood, and 30% underground, when they came in with water utility upgrades in 2016 (along with the assessments) they started moving power underground at the same time, which IMO was a smart, although expensive transition and its more attractive.

 

Nah I've got another post about that.

 

Sorry, but bricks won't save your house. The heat that those fire reach means that everything inside will be cooked anyway. Beside that, your windows and roof aren't made out of bricks.

 

agree, but at least the walls will still be standing, better than burning 100% to the ground.

not sure if there is an easy solution to be honest, if you are surrounded by woods, and there is fire, bad things will happen.

I think someone told me once that earthquakes factored in, since CBS will not flex like wood if there are tremors.

we have fire risk zones near me but not in my particular area of the city, its all 1/4 acre lots, the likelihood of a fire spreading more than couple homes is pretty slim, however in the area's where its estate lots (1 acre) and heavily wooded on the property and in the surrounding area's those homes are much more at risk than I am and occasionally a fire causes damage, some area's in Cali is 10X worse than the area's I'm familiar with.

I remember a trip to Oceanside (south of S.Diego) we explored some of the wooded area's in the hills and IMO it was one HUGE firebox just ready to ignite, very brown, very dry and very heavily wooded < recipe for disaster.

 

The thing is you can have earthquakes anywhere with no warning whatsoever. I've lived in this area of south Arkansas about 8 years in total and we've had at least two detectable earthquakes in that time. Once it announced itself with an huge "BOOM!". People thought it was one of the chemical plants blowing up.

But the chemical plant blowing up didn't happen until two years later.

 

Fireproofing will slow down a fire, not stop it altogether. Pricing for such ain't cheap either.

 

Cost. How much do you think it would cost to undergrounds the miles and miles of high power poles along the highways??

 

How? IIRC if a house is gutted by fire (interior destroyed) then it is considered from a value standpoint to be completely destroyed anyway. And every house I know that has ended up with the "walls standing" has had to be demolished anyway.

 

Brick walls in earthquake country?? You must be joking!

 

Why hasn't growing tall trees near power lines been banned all across our country for the past at least 100 years when we first started stringing power lines on poles????Are we stupid allowing these tall trees to grow near power lines pretty much guarantees power outages every time we have high winds in storms ALL ACROSS THE USA.We should only allow short ornamental trees to be grown anywhere within 100 feet of power lines.California knowing they have the Santa Ana winds every year should have long ago undertaken burying their power lines underground wherever it was humanly possible.They should also discourage plantings of any highly flammable ornamental plants and foliage.

 

And depending on the bricks and mortar used, you can expect a whole lot of them cracking and needing to be replaced anyway.

 

This is what we do here

 

Because in most cases the trees were there before the power lines were. And once a utility company puts up power lines then the right of way where the trees are growing becomes their responsibility and not that of a timber company that owns surrounding forest..

 

By keeping tall trees overgrowing near power lines we are GUARANTEEING power outages and higher utility costs.

 

I think that would not be enough. In these fires, the heat is intense over large areas; if you managed to keep the fire itself say 100 ft from your home, I think the home would still be cooked. When the temp is high enough, things inside would spontaneously combust, and the house would still be trash. I once looked into the idea of setting up a high capacity sprinkler system for those conditions which would keep structures wet and limit temps. That is done with places like refineries, where tanks of stored flammables must be cooled to keep them from exploding. Problem is that in most of California's burn areas, there is just not enough water available to do that.

The issues with both fires and blackouts in California, according to one article, are strongly connected to California government and the rules they have made. It's an interesting article that seems to be quite logical and accurate. Shows that if they thought things through more carefully and considered the entire picture- those fires would be minimized and much more controllable.

California blackouts are a self-inflicted mess – Don't just blame PG&E for the new Dark Ages
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/california-blackouts-pge-jarrett-stepman

 

I don't know what procedures are followed in California but here in Arkansas utilities are pretty fanatical about cutting and/or delimbing trees near power line right of ways. Even more, they won't hesitate to trim or cut down trees growing in peoples yards if they feel they might endanger power lines.