Originally Posted by MrLonzo (Post 2400347)

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.

Originally Posted by CarlR33 (Post 2400361)

I thought I saw the winds were 80-100 mph so we are talking about a hurricane type of blow torch coming down the street. The fire department is taking a beating but I am not sure how you can easily direct water from a fire hose with that kind of wind speed? Apparently it’s disastrous enough the insurance companies are pulling out (prior to theses fires) similar to Florida.

Originally Posted by MrLonzo (Post 2400347)

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.

Originally Posted by MrLonzo (Post 2400426)

Interesting article. However, I’m still trying to imagine how the house ignites if windows and doors are closed. Let’s say one of those embers gets into a vent as the article suggests. If an ember were to get in a plumbing vent jutting up from the roof, for example, it would drop down through a copper pipe and likely be doused by the water in the p-trap. Plus, inside the pipe, there is no wind to stoke the ember.

Some of the houses in the photos have nothing left but ashes. Did the refrigerator melt?? Stainless steel has a melting point of 2500 deg. F. Clay bricks will crumble to ash at 2000 deg. F, yet many houses saw only the brick chimneys survive. It takes time to melt metal even at very high temps. So what is fueling the fire to make it hot enough long enough to melt metal and crumble the stucco walls?

Originally Posted by lorilorilori (Post 2400471)

When I lived in L.A. our homes were surrounded by ice plants. I have spoken to a few Californians who have never heard of ice plants.

Originally Posted by mraines (Post 2400558)

Why are you even questioning this? Do you think this was made up?

Originally Posted by MandoMan (Post 2400490)

On December 30, 2021, a wildfire driven by heavy winds near Boulder, Colorado burned to the ground over a thousand suburban homes in two neighborhoods. I’d been visiting my dad in Denver, and no spotted the plume of smoke as my plane took off that morning. One of my nieces is a firefighter and fought that fire.

I spent five years of my childhood in Northern California, in the mountains above St. Helena and its vineyards. Our first home had varnished redwood siding and redwood shakes on the roof. Most homes were stucco (fireproof concrete), but with shake roofs. Surrounding us was miles of big evergreen trees and dry grass.

My in-laws live in Loma Linda, California, a couple hours east of Pacific Palisades. They live high on a hill, with a gorgeous view, and there are miles of hills behind the house a couple hundred miles away. No trees. Just oily dry brush, tumbleweeds, dry grass.

It’s certainly possible to design homes less likely to burn. However, a home that can withstand, say a dry grass fire when the wind is low, buffered by bare dirt or well-watered grass, on a day when the wind isn’t high, still can’t usually survive 80 mph winds and the heat from a fast-moving fire racing through dry forests. Things like burning pine cones and pine needles and burning brush fragments soar as if in hurricane and can start new fires hundreds of years in advance.

Lots of these Southern California homes have roofs made of clay tiles. Those are half an inch thick and essentially fireproof. Drop a basket of burning pine cones on the roof and they will burn themselves out. Lost house walls are stucco, and that is also mostly fireproof. Glass doesn’t easily melt or burn, either. Studies show that the weak spot is the soffits, often called the eaves, the area under where the roof juts out from the walls. These are usually made from either half-inch painted plywood or thin vinyl. Both burn easily. Also, building codes usually require attic ventilation. Vents in the soffits let air be sucked up into the attic, thanks to vents at the top of the roof. When homes in these situations catch fire, the fire tends to start in the soffits let air area because they are more flammable than stucco or roof tiles. It doesn’t take long when the air is 400°. The flames are sucked into the attic and start burning themselves wood roof trusses and the plywood sheathing. Seconds later, the entire roof is ablaze. That’s the end of the house.

Normally, places like New York State and New Jersey get rain and humidity and dew in the summer and don’t easily burn. Last summer, you may recall, there were big fires there due to unusually dry conditions.

In the winter in The Villages, we get very little rain. Grasses and trees dry out. We are surrounded by many miles of fields and forest. Not far away is the Ocala National Forest, 673 square miles of brush and short pines inhabited by thousands of people in old house trailers, many of them drug addicts. If we have a drought here some summer that lasts several months, could we have a fire that burns out of control and burns thousands of homes? Yes. Could it reach The Villages? Yes.

Consider. My home is framed with wood, covered with vinyl siding that melts and burns, the soffits are vinyl. Thousands of homes here are similar. Faced with a fire similar to the Pacific Palisades fire, The Villages could burn, too. Even homes with concrete walls have vinyl soffits vented to let air (and flames) into the attic. Class A shingles won’t do anything to stop a fire that has already entered the attic and is burning from the inside out.

I don’t live in terror of this happening here, but it certainly could. Some homeless person neglects a little campfire in a hidden spot a mile from here, and because of extreme drought, the glade catches fire, and then the surrounding trees and scrub. If it reaches The Villages as a big wildfire, yes, The Villages could burn, house after house. The fire department can put out two or three house fires at once, but not a hundred. We have lots of ponds that can be used for extra water, but with a fire like that, the closest ones would be quickly drained. Yes, it could happen here.

Originally Posted by MrLonzo (Post 2400495)

It just boggles my mind that temperatures can get so high to cause roofs to burn, glass to melt, and concrete to crumble, but the trees are left intact (see previously posted photo)

Originally Posted by MrLonzo (Post 2400426)

Interesting article. However, I’m still trying to imagine how the house ignites if windows and doors are closed. Let’s say one of those embers gets into a vent as the article suggests. If an ember were to get in a plumbing vent jutting up from the roof, for example, it would drop down through a copper pipe and likely be doused by the water in the p-trap. Plus, inside the pipe, there is no wind to stoke the ember.

Some of the houses in the photos have nothing left but ashes. Did the refrigerator melt?? Stainless steel has a melting point of 2500 deg. F. Clay bricks will crumble to ash at 2000 deg. F, yet many houses saw only the brick chimneys survive. It takes time to melt metal even at very high temps. So what is fueling the fire to make it hot enough long enough to melt metal and crumble the stucco walls?

Originally Posted by mraines (Post 2400556)

But people refuse to believe in climate change.

Originally Posted by mraines (Post 2400556)

But people refuse to believe in climate change.

Originally Posted by ElDiabloJoe (Post 2400603)

Please stop spreading disinformation. May as well tell people the world is flat while you're at it.

Originally Posted by CoachKandSportsguy (Post 2400466)

Cardinals Send Planes to Help Evacuate Rams Players, Families and Pets

@rsmurano's post says alot about the history of the Santa Ana winds and CA wildfires. . been happening for along time, we are sure that there wasn't all climate change . . . but I wouldn't be surprised about some arson attempts from foreign actors

Originally Posted by MandoMan (Post 2400490)

On December 30, 2021, a wildfire driven by heavy winds near Boulder, Colorado burned to the ground over a thousand suburban homes in two neighborhoods. I’d been visiting my dad in Denver, and no spotted the plume of smoke as my plane took off that morning. One of my nieces is a firefighter and fought that fire.

I spent five years of my childhood in Northern California, in the mountains above St. Helena and its vineyards. Our first home had varnished redwood siding and redwood shakes on the roof. Most homes were stucco (fireproof concrete), but with shake roofs. Surrounding us was miles of big evergreen trees and dry grass.

My in-laws live in Loma Linda, California, a couple hours east of Pacific Palisades. They live high on a hill, with a gorgeous view, and there are miles of hills behind the house a couple hundred miles away. No trees. Just oily dry brush, tumbleweeds, dry grass.

It’s certainly possible to design homes less likely to burn. However, a home that can withstand, say a dry grass fire when the wind is low, buffered by bare dirt or well-watered grass, on a day when the wind isn’t high, still can’t usually survive 80 mph winds and the heat from a fast-moving fire racing through dry forests. Things like burning pine cones and pine needles and burning brush fragments soar as if in hurricane and can start new fires hundreds of years in advance.

Lots of these Southern California homes have roofs made of clay tiles. Those are half an inch thick and essentially fireproof. Drop a basket of burning pine cones on the roof and they will burn themselves out. Lost house walls are stucco, and that is also mostly fireproof. Glass doesn’t easily melt or burn, either. Studies show that the weak spot is the soffits, often called the eaves, the area under where the roof juts out from the walls. These are usually made from either half-inch painted plywood or thin vinyl. Both burn easily. Also, building codes usually require attic ventilation. Vents in the soffits let air be sucked up into the attic, thanks to vents at the top of the roof. When homes in these situations catch fire, the fire tends to start in the soffits let air area because they are more flammable than stucco or roof tiles. It doesn’t take long when the air is 400°. The flames are sucked into the attic and start burning themselves wood roof trusses and the plywood sheathing. Seconds later, the entire roof is ablaze. That’s the end of the house.

Normally, places like New York State and New Jersey get rain and humidity and dew in the summer and don’t easily burn. Last summer, you may recall, there were big fires there due to unusually dry conditions.

In the winter in The Villages, we get very little rain. Grasses and trees dry out. We are surrounded by many miles of fields and forest. Not far away is the Ocala National Forest, 673 square miles of brush and short pines inhabited by thousands of people in old house trailers, many of them drug addicts. If we have a drought here some summer that lasts several months, could we have a fire that burns out of control and burns thousands of homes? Yes. Could it reach The Villages? Yes.

Consider. My home is framed with wood, covered with vinyl siding that melts and burns, the soffits are vinyl. Thousands of homes here are similar. Faced with a fire similar to the Pacific Palisades fire, The Villages could burn, too. Even homes with concrete walls have vinyl soffits vented to let air (and flames) into the attic. Class A shingles won’t do anything to stop a fire that has already entered the attic and is burning from the inside out.

I don’t live in terror of this happening here, but it certainly could. Some homeless person neglects a little campfire in a hidden spot a mile from here, and because of extreme drought, the glade catches fire, and then the surrounding trees and scrub. If it reaches The Villages as a big wildfire, yes, The Villages could burn, house after house. The fire department can put out two or three house fires at once, but not a hundred. We have lots of ponds that can be used for extra water, but with a fire like that, the closest ones would be quickly drained. Yes, it could happen here.