How far were the Santa Ana winds carrying embers in these fires ? I thought it was “miles”.
Regardless, I doubt if Anaheim Hills would roll back the non-combustible roofing material requirements. There is no real need to. There are concrete tile rooks now that look like shake but without the maintenance shake rooks required. The only issue is the weight on old roofs not built to support that much weight.
Yeah, embers can travel miles, when a fire’s really hot, and the wind is gusting 80mph, but a wet roof — even a wood shake roof — will withstand a rain of glowing embers just fine. Just keep the water on it.
Also, two things:
One: the tract I’m talking about was built in 1967; Nanny State government was still in the flower of its youth, then. I mean, in those days, seat belts were still a fairly new thing. People still ran with scissors, rode bikes without helmets, and laid out in the sun without SPF 500,000,000 sunblock. Ye gods, people still smoked in restaurants, then! They even DIED, from time-to-time (yeah, I know, we hardly hear about THAT anymore), and folks would just nod their heads and say, “Yup. That’s the way it goes: ya live, ya have fun, ya enjoy all that ya can, and then ya kick the bucket.” We’re talking emergent paleonanny statism, here. You lived your life without a safety net, you had your liberty and your responsibility, and if you were really stupid, you took your lumps like a man. If you lived, you learned not to act that stupid; if you didn’t, everyone ELSE learned not to act that stupid. Man, the entitlement and regulatory bureaucracies were barely even rough cave dwellings, at that time.
Two: IIRC, “concrete” tile shingles are less like your driveway, and more like cinder blocks. Porous. Still not featherweights, but not the mass of Spanish tile, either.