That's a real shame. Hope that they can rebuild it.
Are there any reasonably affordable building material which can avoid being ignited by a short
exterior fire. I remember seeing a pic with zero info on it about the Oakland Hills fires a number
of years ago. The pic was quite striking and I remember it because it was taken from some substantial
distance, directly facing the hill. There were about three roads crossing the image, each at a diffeent
level. The frame was large enough to get about 5 home sites on each level. All homes were just
ashes with refrigerators and such, like your photos, except one home which appeared to be entirely
untouched. It was striking because it was white stucco exterior and a red clay tile Spanish style roof.
Is this sort of construction actually fire resistant enough or was that just some sort of a fluke? Here
we commonly have cedar shake roofs, which I consider insane from a fire risk standpoint, although they
are mostly being replaced with normal shingles these days. In KC suburbs we have lots of
trees, but not so much shrubbery.
I see that the walls are OK, would there be some roof materials (affordable) that would withstand this?
Many homes in Colorado mtns near my vacation home have metal roofs, which it seems would be
pretty fire resistant, but not sure how it really works. What may seem to be fine may not actually
survive in practice.
Bill