Posted on 11/18/2018 7:59:00 AM PST by Dupin
Sure, why not? Don't most fire victims have an extra couple hundred thousand laying around to play with?
Interesting info. Thanks.
Underground shelters are large enough to handle air for an hour or more. We’re not talking a 55 gallon drum here.
“Sole surviving houses do not happen by accident... “
Sure they do. I’ve seen a half dozen major fires in Colorado and it is stunning which homes stand or fall.
Current California Law requires minimal resistance plus defensible space. Any insurance carrier with half a brain should be mandating concrete and steel with shutters for new construction in the wildland urban interface.
I’m a semi-retired Fire Marshal, and I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t. What is really needed is a defensible space, a decent source of water like a swimming pool with pump to supply water to cool critical areas of the structure, and fire proof construction including metal window shutters. Your basement then becomes your fire shelter, but only as a last resort if there’s not enough warning time to evacuate.
Advising people to stay in other than dire situations with no warning is a terrible idea, no matter how good their shelter is. Shelters can easily become traps if the entry points get damaged or covered over by collapsed structures, debris, abandoned vehicles, or emergency responders who don’t know they are there. And when you emerge from your shelter, you are stepping into a post apocalypse world. Better to have a good bug out plan, get out of Dodge early, and hope your structure doesn’t get too badly compromised by those who stayed and become desperate for any kind of shelter.
Advising people to stay in other than dire situations with no warning is a terrible idea, no matter how good their shelter is.
I am not sure if that is what the person that I was responding to had in mind. It is certainly an equally bad idea to advise people to not have some type of emergency shelter on one’s property in case whatever evacuation plans have been made previously do not work out. ie. No adequate warning, the roads or driveways are blocked, the vehicles, won’t start, or who knows what else?
Mandating concrete and steel buildings with shutters etc. would most likely be prohibitively expensive for many if not most property owners. The “576-square-foot, one-bedroom home” that “costs around $24,000” in the article you linked to is going to be suitable for very few people other than for a getaway cabin. And from my experience is probably referring only to the rough structure and not a livable space.
I am not aware of any situation where people became trapped in their emergency shelters, and then were not found by emergency responders because of the possibilities that you have imagined. If the entrance was located where this could be a problem... preparations could be made in advance such as notifying the local authorities or putting up some type of signage. Friends or family who knew the missing persons could probably also advise rescuers. If you could find a link to an actual situation not in a third world country that has caused you to become so concerned about this possibility I would appreciate it greatly.
Are you really that lazy? A quick web search shows GigaCrete homes are available in all sorts of sizes and styles. And the prices are far less than current wood frame with quick-fail engineered trusses that if you really cared about your own safety you’d lobby to outlaw.
$576 sq. ft. for $40000 works out to $69 per square foot. That’s breathtakingly affordable. Turn key with luxury features is still going to be under $100 a sq. ft.
Ask a Northern California contractor to build you a stick frame house for even $169.00/sq. ft. and see what hand gesture he gives you.
And my shelter advice is this - Don’t overspend on a luxury prepper vault, because it encourages you to stay even if you do have enough evacuation time. A minimal shelter for last ditch final option might be worth spending some money on, but your luxury escape vault money is far better spent building a fire proof main structure and providing defensible space.
And if you have spent any time seriously learning about fire prevention you know that people block exits with storage and due to other poor decisions all the time. The odds that the average homeowner will still have the shelter in usable condition five years down the road is pretty dicey.
Your suggestions about notifying local firefighters and posting signs sound great, but there is never any follow through, and Murphy’s Law will quickly nullify the best laid plans of mice and men. Signs burn or char, neighbors move or go on vacation.
When was the last time a homeowner told you something important for responders to know and you made sure that the information would be instantly available for any crew from any shift, or a crew put together with O/T (oops, did you forget Mutual Aid units?) in any future call to that address? What if comms are down, is that information still gonna be there.
My real world example is now a third world area, but it was pretty livable until a couple of weeks ago. Paradise, California, the perfect example of what goes wrong when you plan to fail.
Paradise had the Humboldt Fire that came to town 10 years ago and destroyed 87 houses right at the edge. It showed them they didn’t have any good evac options. It showed them they need defensible space. Did they do public education, homesite inspections? You bet they did. Worthless.
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/74-Paradise-homes-destroyed-by-Humboldt-Fire-3209635.php
Mike Tyson famously said “Everybody’s got a plan, until they get punched in the mouth.” Well in reality, everybody’s got a plan, until about a week later when they start unconsciously compromising every aspect of that plan. Paradise’s plan was even more of a farce, because right off the bat they gave up on a full bug out, and instead opted for an evac warning plan that relied on comms that no longer worked once they realized they needed to use it.
If you would have bothered to read the article that you linked to you might have noticed that the article said that GigaCrete homes come in all sizes. The $24,000 figure mentioned in the article for a 576 square foot home was not realistic... it was obviously referring to a rough structure with no improvements. The permits would probably cost you $24,000 in many parts of California. People spend $24,000 remodeling their bathrooms in California.
The article was a promotional piece. The expenses for this type of construction in a rural area are likely going to be higher than traditional methods. Gigacrete, Inc is a Los Vegas corporation that has been around for about 10 years. They have produced some promising promotional material, but who knows if they can deliver.
https://www.quora.com/What-do-experienced-home-construction-experts-think-of-the-Gigahouse
The professional home construction “experts” are a bit more skeptical of their claims than you are. From the link:
“Construction world is full of failed earthshattering new technologies”
“Years ago I was involved with building a Hebel Block house that justifiably made many of the same claims about ease of construction. It was a great product, but with extremely limited availability, much like the Gigahouse situation currently. “
“Like most proprietary systems, I think it will be priced way higher than required to make a profit and will therefore price itself out of its most likely market, first-time homebuilders of the DIY variety.”
“I think it's a neat enough idea, but without widespread availability it will continue to be a fad used as a novelty by those with a lot of money looking to build the next fad.”
A minimal shelter for last ditch final option might be worth spending some money on, but your luxury escape vault money is far better spent building a fire proof main structure and providing defensible space.
I haven't read every post in this thread so I do not know if anyone else was advocating for a “luxury escape vault”... I certainly did not. So do me a favor and do not put words in my mouth.
The government has no business mandating the one type of construction method that these hapless souls should only be allowed to rebuild. There are many other construction methods that could provide adequate fire protection depending on the location and situation. That is a decision that should be left to the property owner not a gullible “semi-retired Fire Marshal” who thinks he has all the answers.
I spent a lot of years in the fire service and I am not sure what a “semi-retired Fire Marshal” is or does. Were you the head fire inspector for a rural district somewhere? or what?
Signs burn or char, neighbors move or go on vacation.
You don't know me. You do not know the types of preparations that I or anyone else would choose to make to protect ourselves or our family. You certainly seem to have a very high opinion of yourself and a low opinion of the public. My wife and I are aviation enthusiasts, when we take a long trip in one of our airplanes I feel it is much more important to let our family members know our flight plan and then keep them updated if we change it than to even bother contacting the FAA. We use their services, but our family and friends are the ones who actually care. The government does not care for people. People care for people.
We had a system in the fire department that I worked for to enter pertinent location information about every address in our jurisdiction. But you did not answer my question... Outside of your vivid imagination, what specific example can you give of someone in this country trapped in an emergency shelter or bunker that they prepared to withstand a wildfire and were then not able to be located by rescuers. I will continue to assume that you are worrying about a situation that has only existed in your imagination until you provide this information.
money is far better spent building a fire proof main structure and providing defensible space.
That is not necessarily bad advice except for one minor detail. No above ground structure in the path of a wildfire is completely fire proof. And no space is completely defensible unless you are allowed to remove all combustible plant life and trees over an extended area. But the “semi-retired fire marshals” in the disaster areas did not allow this or fight for this did they? No, the very last people that you can rely on to plan for your family's safety and well being are government officials, “semi-retired” or not.
Before he came to our department, one of the people I worked with was sent out into a rural area with his crew to protect a small farm that was near a fire. They did some prep work and wetted down the area and structures by pumping from a pool the people had on their property. He said in the time they first noticed the fire coming down the road toward and the time that it was on top of them, they barely had time to get into their aluminum coated emergency fire shelters and roll under their engine.
When they crawled out from under their shelters after the fire had passed, everything was gone and their fire engine was destroyed. They got in trouble for letting the engine get destroyed, but it was a one way out location and none of the crew had a clue how fast things could go bad, or how bad that they could get. He said that they were all lucky to be alive even with a fire engine to hide under.
You start your argument with permit fees, as if permits are free for wood stick construction. Permit fee differences for concrete and steel are only marginally more expensive than wood frame in most jurisdictions.
We get what we pay for. We’re all free to build whatever suite our purpose, within limits set by a government agency or lender or underwriter. That said, a bargain on initial construction doesn’t seem quite as sweet when all the fire department can save is the chimney and foundation.
At some point soon a tipping point will be reached, and insurance carriers bankrupted by huge wildfire losses will mandate a complete change in WUI (pop quiz to see if you know what that stands for) construction for homebuilders expecting to be underwritten.
It sounds like you are wanting a resume for me so here you go -
I spent 25 years in full-time municipal fire prevention work as an inspector, plans examiner, supervising inspector, 5 years as Acting Fire Marshal, final 3 years as Deputy Fire Chief/Fire Marshal. I have certification in fire protection engineering from a major university. I’m a State certified fire and arson investigator. And yes, I did graduate a Fire Academy and I’ve humped hose bundles, but the vast majority of my work has been in fire prevention.
Semi-retired means that for the last 6 years I’ve still been working in the field, but I am restricted by the Pension Agency to no more than 960 hours per year.
I think we’ll probably just need to agree to disagree on this issue. Neither one of us is going to make Federal or State policy anyway. Stay safe and enjoy your career, the years go by quickly in the fire service.
I should probably add that the injuries that I received while working a wild fire, though not life threatening, kept me off the job longer than any others during my career (over a month). So I have a very healthy respect for them. Though not work related, I lost only two weeks when my appendix ruptured and I had to have emergency surgery.
Thanks for your cordial reply. And I have been completely retired from the fire service for several years. I was on a city department as well. We had some forested areas in our jurisdiction and had wildland firefighting training. We responded to surrounding areas and even sent across the mountains when requested for wildland fires. During my career I was assigned to engines and ladders, worked as a safety officer, and was the senior officer in charge of our hazmat team on my shift. I also had training in fire prevention, and on our department at that time, the fire companies did the vast majority of inspections. But I cannot claim to have the qualifications that you have in fire prevention.
We currently have a house that is completely surrounded by tall fir trees in an outlying area. Whenever the wind blows they make a huge mess. I am in the process of fixing it up so we can move back to town which better suits us at this stage in our lives.
I do love a lively discussion which is why I am on this forum. I hope no offense was taken if I got a little carried away.
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