[jimjamuser]

Originally Posted by MrLonzo

I lived in Southern California for over 40 years. My house, and most houses there are stucco over wood frame with Class A roofing shingles made of fiberglass/asphalt or clay.

Stucco is not a flammable material. It is composed of Portland cement and sand, neither of which are flammable. Class A roofing shingles are fire-resistant and can withstand exposure to direct flames without catching fire, according to numerous online sources. You’ll find inside most of these upscale houses lots of tiling, stainless steel, mirrors, glass, and other non-flammable materials.

So how do embers get to the wood frame leading to the burning down of the entire house? And how do the fires spread so quickly from house to house (one report says “length of a football field in 90 seconds”). Yes, wind is an accelerant, but fire needs flammable fuel.

I don’t disbelieve the pictures I’m seeing, just trying to understand how this happens.

This is a really good thread starter. Response # 44 has the best answer to the question of how the fire gets through the fairly fireproof stucco exterior walls. I noticed that the houses that are standing (with neighboring houses totally destroyed) have small or no soffits. The purpose of soffits is to allow air to circulate inside the attic. The problem is that small spark embers during a FIRESTORM can enter the attic through those soffits. The house then burns down from the INSIDE OUT. The fire proof stucco walls get BYPASSED by the HOT RISING air which contains the SPARK embers. This was explained by response #44. I just wanted to add a little.