California wild fires

[Jameshow]

Yes, I've been there, thank you.

Of course it's vast, but that's no excuse for doing nothing. The area affected is about twice the size of Reading. Nevertheless, the scale isn't insurmountable if the necessary resources are in place the the project rotates through the area over the years. After all, the US can completely deforeset hundreds of thousands of acres when there's money to be made from doing so, but they're not so keen to do the less intensive work of thinning and managing an area when it's going to cost them.

At a technical level etc least Trump's idea was not at all fanciful. Probably by complete accident he came out with a sensible idea, at least at a technical level. People are dancing around the real issue which is who would pay for it- the expense would be vast, although less so if targeted in the few miles aprund the boundary of each settlement.

The expense would be eye watering, but then the expense in life, limb and property has already been eye-watering, so it comes down to a political will to spend the money preventatively instead of retrospectively.

It dies seem odd that they have forest (which in the climate can be very dry) right up close to the city.
They ought to have a buffer zone perhaps 5 miles surely??

Do they not have lookout posts for watching for fires as they do in other parts of American and Canada?

Also lakes reserved for fire fighting so the water supply isn't contaminated?

 

[Beebo]

Timber housing is a massive issue in the suburbs. Like this picture.

A fire wouldn’t spread like this through an entire estate in the UK as virtually every house is brick. We learned this in 1666 after the fire of London.

I wonder if the building codes will be changed.

 

[matticus]

Timber housing is a massive issue in the suburbs. Like this picture.

A fire wouldn’t spread like this through an entire estate in the UK as virtually every house is brick. We learned this in 1666 after the fire of London.

Half of Grand Design homes are timber (the rest are lovely concrete. mmmmm ...) Does the UK control where you build with timber?

 

[gbb]

It reminds me of flying back from Portugal some years ago. As I idly looked out the window on the landscape below I could see a thin, erratic bright orange line threaded across the.landscape.
Wild fire I assumed. Looked quite odd from way up.


There are some videos of people in their houses looking out on the inferno outside. I'm tempted to think these may be AI, surely the heat would burst the windows, torch the house...it just doesn't look right.

 

[Beebo]

Half of Grand Design homes are timber (the rest are lovely concrete. mmmmm ...) Does the UK control where you build with timber?

I dont know.
but we don’t currently have a risk of wild fires in populated areas.
I’m always amazed that they have known tornado regions in USA with light weight timber framed buildings.

 

[Sixmile]

My house is in a flood risk area and we've been flooded before (2008). Today it's still difficult to get flood cover because of the '1 in 25 year event' - although the house was built circa 1920 and has never previously flooded. The excess though is shocking so even if those in California could get some sort of fire cover, I'm sure the excess would've been eye watering in all cases - that is if American insurance works in anyway similar to the UK.

 

[si_c]

My house is in a flood risk area and we've been flooded before (2008). Today it's still difficult to get flood cover because of the '1 in 25 year event' - although the house was built circa 1920 and has never previously flooded. The excess though is shocking so even if those in California could get some sort of fire cover, I'm sure the excess would've been eye watering in all cases - that is if American insurance works in anyway similar to the UK.

Large numbers of insurance companies are pulling out of the southern california market and not renewing policies when they expire precisely due to the increased risk of wildfires. Whilst some will have reinsured through the state run insurance of last resort I'm guessing a lot of people will have let their insurance lapse.

 

[Psamathe]

Large numbers of insurance companies are pulling out of the southern california market and not renewing policies when they expire precisely due to the increased risk of wildfires.

I can understand the challenge. I've always considered insurance a form of spreading the risk (with an overhead for corporate profits). When high risk results in high claims so everybody has to put more in (through premiums) - the money to pay the claims has to come from somewhere with the insurance cover model society uses.

When premiums go up to cover the high claims from high risk some can no longer afford cover ...

So companies decide if it's a viable market for them to operate in or if they can make more money being more geographically constrained.

It's not unique to US, we've seen similar in UK with some insurance companies only providing cover for restricted eg properties.

But I suspect further discussion of this aspect would be into NACP section stuff.

Ian

 

[presta]

Insurance only works when there's a sufficient element of unpredictability, if you know something's going to happen, or very likely to happen, it's not insurable because the premium becomes as large as the loss you're trying to protect yourself from. If you try to pool risk with other policyholders who aren't in the same high risk category they'll just get fed up with subsidising the high risk customers and look for insurers that reject them.

 

[matticus]

Some astonishing pictures https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-6789cf28-d4de-4dfd-9f4f-cf51ef1d6a54

 

[Sixmile]

The efforts to fight the fires were commendable (apart from the guy pouring oat milk on his roof) but you've got to think that the firefighters stood no chance facing the combinations of factors that they faced.

 

[Beebo]

The logistics for where all these displaced people are going to live will be enormous.
There is only so many options available and it will take years to rebuild these homes.
And then they will need access to schools and other services.

And that one picture is probably $10-15million dollars of damage. Multiply that over the city and it will see insurance companies failing. Lloyds could be in trouble if they have reinsured some of these companies.

 

[Andy in Germany]

They ought to have a buffer zone perhaps 5 miles surely??

They built houses in it.

 

[Andy in Germany]

Have you actually been to California? I don't think you have any idea how much forest there is. Many of the bushes around the west coast have a very oily sap, this readily catches fire.

Yes, funny that, almost like part of the lifecycle of the ecosystem is for it to burn occasionally.

 

[Ajax Bay]

that one picture is probably $10-15million dollars of damage.

You're valuing those 50 houses at $200k then? (I assume sell (when intact) for rather more.)
I guess the rebuilding costs might be of that order (as opposed to the house prices).