Like everyone else, I've been reading the accounts of the fires in California, and have been amazed at the totality of the destruction. This observation was quite striking:
Plastic is made from petroleum, and petroleum burns fast and hot. A retired Maryland state fire marshal told Newsweek that, from a fire perspective, a typical couch is akin to a block of gasoline...
In 2020, the Fire Safety Research Institute set two living rooms on fire, on purpose. Both were identical in size and full of furnishings in an identical arrangement. But in one room, almost everything was synthetic: a polyurethane-foam sofa covered in polyester fabric sat behind an engineered-wood coffee table, both set on a polyolefin carpet. The curtains were polyester, and a polyester throw blanket was draped on the couch. In the other room, a wood sofa with cotton cushions sat on a hardwood floor, along with a solid-wood coffee table. The curtains and throw blanket were cotton. In the natural-material room, the cotton couch appeared to light easily, and then maintained a steady flame where it was lit, releasing little smoke. After 26 minutes, the flames had spread to the other side of the couch, but the rest of the room was still intact, if smoky. Meanwhile, in the synthetic room, a thick dark smoke rose out of the flame on the polyester couch. At just under five minutes, a flash of orange flame consumed the whole room all at once. “Flashover,” firefighters call it—when escape becomes impossible. In the natural-material room, flashover took longer than 30 minutes. Perhaps that difference helps explain why, although the rate of home fires in the U.S. has more than halved since 1980, more people are dying in their homes when they do catch fire.
The Newsweek link strongly urges readers to have automated sprinklers installed in their homes.
Embedded photo of Palisades fire residua, credit Noah Berger / AP, via The Atlantic.
There is so much that can be done but isn't because people are short-sighted.
ReplyDeletehttps://heatmap.news/climate/los-angeles-fires-zone-zero
(watch the video)
99% invisible did a podcast on this same subject years ago. It featured two adjacent neighborhoods. One that had implemented all this knowledge, another that didn't (because it was older). The latter burnt down to the ground, while the former survived mostly - be is smokey and charred.
tdlr: We know how to reduce the damage from fires. However, we refuse to implement that knowledge.
Also, fire turns solids into gas. So a lot of matter seems to disappear.
Thanks for the link. Heatmap looks like an interesting source.
DeleteI hadn't even looked at the rest of the site, tbh.
DeleteI was just happy to find a single article in all this fire coverage stating what is true for so many climate "crises": we know what the solutions are, but we don't implement them because "money" or "freedom" or "bullshit". It is incredibly tragic that a lot of the press does not dig deeper than "this is an act of god we could not have prevented" when that is often not the case.
We can do so much more than we are doing without getting to the heavy lifting. And yes, we need the heavy lifting too and sooner rather than later (Hi Crowboy), but let's start by doing anything at all.
We can try to harden our entire infrastructure against fire, flood, wind, drought, etc. Optimists will be most fond of this direction and pessimists less fond. After living the impact of many wind-driven mega wildfires within a few miles of my city (to include the Camp Fire, which took around 14,000 residences and over eighty lives) I'm more convinced that we've unleashed an unstoppable force that's becoming exponentially more destructive. Adjusted for inflation, the number of billion+ US disasters has gone from about three a year to about thirty in only four decades. This is "hockey stick" mind blowing given the implications for the future. Setting aside the huge carbon footprint of hardening everything, it may be a good idea psychologically, given it gives people a sense of control. On the flip side of this psychological advantage, there're the disadvantages associated with denial.
DeleteI'm more convinced that we've unleashed an unstoppable force that's becoming exponentially more destructive.
DeleteWe have.
But that does not mean we can not and should not do anything. The link I posted above (https://heatmap.news/climate/los-angeles-fires-zone-zero) shows that we know how to reduce the impact. So let's get that done.
You can never eliminate risk. But you can reduce and manage to acceptable levels. Aviation, medicine, scuba diving, and motor vehicle safety features are shining examples.
We also know that we can solve climate problems. Acid rain is largely gone. The hole in the ozone layer is stabilizing as predicted.
And we also know, from past experienced that prevention is always cheaper than letting the disaster happen.
So let's go.
That makes me feel better about having old wooden furniture, linen curtains, and a leather sofa. The downside is that all that natural material sprouts mildew in the summer, when everything has to be cleaned often. Still doesn't bother me enough to use air conditioning instead of open windows.
ReplyDeleteCAL FIRE Hardening Your Home https://readyforwildfire.org/prepare-for-wildfire/hardening-your-home/
ReplyDeleteWatch Duty - tracks wildfires in left half of USA https://app.watchduty.org/i/40335
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/17/la-houses-survived-fire ‘It was built for this’: how design helped spare some homes from the LA wildfires
ReplyDelete