Everyone has seen photos and videos of the wildfires ravaging the western states. What always startles me is how many of the destroyed homes are not cabins nestled in a woodland - just ordinary houses in a residential subdivision. Also, as shown in the second photo, the startlingly narrow margin between survival and devastation.
Second image cropped for emphasis from the original, both of which credit City of Redding (California), via a gallery at The Guardian.
Related: The Hinckley Firestorm of 1894
Stan, 99% Invisible (the podcast) recently did a two-part episode on this very issue. They pointed out that frequently it is the house design that determines whether it will burn or not. Also, something as simple as whether the gutters are full of dry pine needles can be the difference. I highly recommend you check it out.
ReplyDeletehttps://99percentinvisible.org/episode/built-to-burn/
Yes! I second this. Notice all the burned houses next to GREEN trees. It is a design flaw that caused these houses to burn... not necessarily the fire itself. The fire merely exposed it.
Delete99 percent invisible ran a series of stories on fires in this country. I highly recommend you check them out, Stan.
DeleteI wonder if the people whose homes are still standing experience a form of "Survivor's guilt?"
ReplyDeleteI live in Santa Rosa, California where thousands of homes were burned in October 2017. Our house survived though one block from us everything burned to the ground. What we learned is that fire and wind are capricious. A fire which had burned moving west for several hours suddenly turned south and saved our house. And, yes, survivor's guilt in our case was real when so many in our community lost everything.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the personal and honest response. No way for me to even imagine the emotions of that situation.
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