Gary Oberts has supplied us with a list of sites for an OLLI Lecture on fire occurrence, and fire prevention. It was compiled for the OLLI lecture by UCI Earth System Science Professor James Randerson. I am happy to note that Prof. Randerson has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
Here are the list of references:
- https://news.uci.edu/2015/09/08/southern-california-wildfires-exhibit-split-personalities/
- http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2015/08/27/dangerous-increase-in-risk-of-large-u-s-wildfires-predicted-by-mid-century/
- https://public.wmo.int/en/resources/bulletin/unnatural-disasters-communicating-linkages-between-extreme-events-and-climate
- http://www.ocfa.org/RSG/HomeAssessment
- http://ucanr.edu/sites/wildfire/ (Homeowner’s wildfire guide)
- https://disastersafety.org/wildfire/
In particular, the OCFA site and other news articles stress the importance of having overhanging eaves sealed, and vents covered by a grating.
It turns out that since the Coffey subdivision was not within the very high fire hazard zone, and was mapped as urban, it did not have high fire standard regulations imposed on it. The fire was surmised to have passed from house to house. The Fire and Resource Assessment Program of Cal Fire will be revising fire hazard zones.
I would imagine in our digitally wired households of having vents that would automatically be sealed in case that they sensed a fire. However, this would require batteries and sensors as in smoke alarms. Over the 50 years of a house, homeowners would consider it a nuisance to service these, especially if the probability of a massive fire occurrence is only 2% over the lifetime of a house.
The main fire prevention is the dedication of the 10,000 brave firefighters and first responders who have been saving housing subdivisions, one after another. This includes hundreds of aircraft and bulldozers, and a thousand fire engines.
