Expect a Lot of Talk About Making Homes Fire-Resistant. Here’s
The whole world has watched in horror as wind-driven fires have ravaged Southern California, According to available data, approximately one-third of the U.S. population lives within two miles of the WildlandUrban Interface (WUI), meaning roughly 100 million Americans are situated in areas at risk of wildfires due to their proximity to wildlands. That’s 45 million residences that could be destroyed quickly, given the “perfect storm” of high winds, low humidity and dry vegetation.
It was that combination that destroyed over 1,000 homes in Boulder County three years ago.
sealed is essential when fire breaks out. The windows should be closed, of course, but keep in mind that if the windows have vinyl framing, it could melt, allowing the window to fall out. Aluminum framing melts at 1100º F, so metal or fire-rated wood framing is best. You could even install fire shutters or roll-down steel shutters, allowing you to keep your current vinyl windows.
My Contribution.
My Previous Columns on This Topic (posted at
Sept. 14, 2023 — I Found Only One Marshall Fire Home Being Rebuilt With Fire Resistance in Mind
Jan. 5, 2023 — Revisiting Lessons Learned from the Marshall Fire a Year Later
Just like then, we are beginning to see pictures of homes that didn’t burn in the middle of neighborhoods where every other house was burned to the ground. Below is one such picture taken by the architect who built it, Greg Chasen. There was even a car parked on the property line that burned so hot that the aluminum from the car melted, flowing in a stream toward the sidewalk. A video link with this article on our blog, http://RealEstateToday.substack.com, includes Chasen explaining how he designed the home to survive just such a fire.
Embers will land on your roof, so a metal roof is best. There are some attractive stone-coated steel roofs that resemble wood shakes or composition shingles.
If you have a vented attic, you can install screens with 1/16-inch mesh that will keep 99% of embers out of your home.
The most important factor in keeping a fire out of a house is eliminating wind-driven embers from entering the attic. Most homes have ventilated attics, with soffit vents to let air in and roof vents to let the air out. In the above house, there is no attic and therefore no vents.
In my Oct. 13, 2022, column (see box above right), I wrote about two homes in Superior that didn’t burn because they had “conditioned” attics with no openings for ventilation. Instead of blown-in insulation resting on the attic floor, the ceilings of the attics (the underside of the roof) in both homes were insulated with closed-cell foam — in other words, attics were conditioned (heated and cooled) like the rest of the house. Because most fires spread through windblown embers, keeping a home completely
Some building codes now require fire sprinklers, but sprinklers probably wouldn’t be in your unconditioned attic. If a fire enters your attic, the PVC pipes in the attic for delivering water to your top floor sprinkler heads would likely melt before the sprinklers activate, which would be too late anyway.
If you have flammable roofing, you might install sprinkler heads on your roof ridges to keep the roof wet during an ember storm, but don’t bother doing that if you haven’t made your attic ember-proof!
Wood decks, wood fences and vegetation that touches your house will receive windblown embers and, after burning next to your house for a while, will ignite your home, so consider replacing or eliminating the deck, installing steel fencing, and eliminating all vegetation within five feet of your home, especially juniper bushes, which make great kindling for starting a house fire.
If you’ll be replacing your windows, having the outer pane be tempered glass makes it much more resistant to breakage from heat, and pay attention to the window frames, as I mentioned above.
If building a new home, adobe walls are best, because “dirt doesn’t burn.” In my Sept. 14, 2023, column I reported on a Marshall
Oct. 13, 2022 — Homes That Survived the Marshall Fire Were More Airtight and Had Conditioned Attics
Jan. 20, 2022 — Here Are More Examples of Concrete Construction and Fire-Resistant Roofing
Jan. 13, 2022 — Homes Built of Concrete Garner Increased Interest in Wake of Marshall Fire
Jan. 6, 2022 — Last Week’s Fire Disaster Is a Wake-up Call for Building More FireResistant Homes
Fire rebuild made from “Ecoblox,” a product of Lisa Morey’s startup, Colorado Earth
Here is a picture of homeowners Matteo Rebeschini and Melanie Glover at the factory where the Ecoblox for their home were being manufactured. Ecoblox also have a smaller carbon footprint than traditional bricks, because they are not fired, but merely compressed.
Building with dirt has a long and proven track record dating back 10,000 years, and is clearly the most proven material for building a fire-resistant home. Learn more at www.ColoradoEarth.com Their factory is near Brighton. Lisa built 25 homes in New Zealand before returning to the United States and co-authoring a book on the subject, Adobe Homes for All Climates
China and New Zealand are leaders, it appears, in the resurgence of this building technique. Read more at www.earthhomes.co.nz.
The reason for using bricks instead of its predecessor technology, rammed earth, is that it can be reinforced with steel rods and concrete to make the structure earthquake resistant, not just fireresistant.
Of necessity, this article only begins to deal with hardening an existing home or building a fire-resistant home. In researching this topic, I discovered a website www.WildfirePrepared.org, which has an amazingly thorough checklist of actions to take which result in the awarding of a “Wildfire Prepared Home” or “Wildfire Prepared Home Plus” certificate which is recognized by insurers in Oregon and California, but not yet in other states. Nevertheless, it is a terrific menu of actions you could take to make your Colorado home fire-resistant. I have put a link to it with this article at http:// RealEstateToday.substack.com
PBS Show to Feature Local Net Zero Home
This coming Saturday, January 25th, Rocky Mountain PBS will broadcast another episode of “Heart of a Building,” this time featuring John Avenson’s amazing net zero home in Westminster. It will air at 5:00, between “This Old House” and “Weekend NewsHour.”
neer, has continued to enhance the home’s performance as each new technology, such as coldweather heat pumps, was introduced.
John’s home was built by SERI (Solar Energy Research Institute), the former name of NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) as a demonstration project of passive solar design, with the limited active solar technology available at that time.
Since, then, John, a re-tired Bell Labs engi-
You’ll be impressed at how far John has gone to have his home be an educational installation which he keeps open to the public. It has been on multiple green home tours. Look for the half-hour program at 5:00 pm this coming Saturday on both Channel 6 and Channel 12. The series is a production of Rocky Mountain PBS, but it will air nationally on all PBS stations at a later date.
The shelter at its current location is closed leaving 5 year old Harper without a home. To buy her more time, we have enrolled her in a specialized 6 week board and train to let her be the best dog she can be. She graduates in January and included in her training are follow up sessions with her adopter. Her ideal home would be as an only dog. She is a sweetheart that deserves a happy tail for the new year. Email info@imhs.org about her today!
For more information please call 303-838-2668 • www.imhs.org
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