Legislation to Create a National Disaster Review Board

[John Farley]

People who say climate change has nothing to do with the kinds of wildfires we have had in recent years are almost certainly wrong. There are many aspects of climate change that contribute to fires: hotter weather, more severe drought, and more extreme swings between very dry and very wet weather. At the same time, people who focus ONLY on climate change are also almost certainly wrong. Poor forest management (suppressing nearly all fires for much of the last century), greatly increased development into fire prone areas, and inadequate funding of fire departments and mitigation efforts are also quite clearly part of the problem. Why do so many of our arguments have to be all or none, one way or the other? It is never that simple.

As to Mike's post about NTSB recommendations being ignored, the same thing will almost certainly be a problem if we do get a NDRB. It is an adage among disaster researchers that we are nearly always better prepared for the last disaster than for the next one. That is not an argument against having a NDRB, just an inevitable limitation of what impact it might have. We SHOULD learn from past mistakes, but that is not always the case.

 

[Mike Smith]

Regarding the NDRB: Five of the six NOAA tsunami detection buoys in the Caribbean were out of service yesterday and had been for quite a while.

NOAA has deteriorated considerably and desperately needs reform.

With regard to John's comment about the SoCal fires and climate change. Please read Cliff Mass' piece on the fires that I previously posted. The type of vegetation involved dries out incredibly fast -- within a few days after even the heaviest rains. That means the dry weather over the months before the fire had nothing to do with the fires.

Otherwise, I agree with John's comments.

 

[James K]

but rather the extreme swings between very wet years (the previous two years) and very dry ones (this year, only .03" of rain since Oct 1). This causes a surge in vegetation in the wet years, which then dries out in the dry years, providing fuel for wildfires.

This is a very good point, in wet years all that stuff - grasses/shrubs/weeds/etc can and will put on allot of growth(thats just nature its simply how these plants live). Then in a dry or even a just normal year, all that stuff will dry out and be ripe for burning. It is simply not possible or practical or even possible to go through thousands of acres of forest and "clean out" all that dead vegetation. Individual landowners can/should keep a defensible space around their structures though. (but again its not like a state/county/town can/should be going by every property every dry season on "weed patrol")

They are dropping people in the heartland too.

Its happening in CO too, particularly in the mountains - for one of the same reasons as CA: wildfires. There was an article in the paper back in January about people being dropped by multiple insurance companies, and its now getting hard to even get insurance in some parts of the mountains.

4 homes on a 1 acre lot, and all it takes is one to go and they will all go.

This is in big part due to how close they are built together. Then there's also the factor of even with homes that are spread out the building materials used... like instead of actual lumber there is more & more 'manufactured wood' type products in the structure (the majority of it OSB-based). This stuff not only ignites easier, it burns hotter, and being being a much thinner board it burns up quicker(leading to structural failure/collapse of the building even quicker).
Then you have siding, which has in the past has been sometimes wood or mostly pressed hardboard... both of which will ofcourse burn, but these days its more likely OSB-based which ignites easier than the older pressed hardboard. Though that said, *some* builders are using 'James Hardie' siding which is cement-fiber a based product. It wont burn, but is also not "fireproof" in the sense that it will eventually fall apart if kept in contact with flame, and being just a thin board, heat can transfer through it causing the underlying structure to catch fire. But what it will do is prevent sparks or small embers from igniting the *siding* leading to structure fire. The "downside" to that type of product is its more expensive and harder to work with, so the common "build the thing as cheap as possible" rules it out in some cases.

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Honestly other than the very important fire mitigation/defensible spaces/etc.. I think one of the big things that needs to be looked at/reviewed in fire-prone areas (or in general wind-prone areas) is the construction itself...
Maybe its time to update building codes and start getting away from wood and especially OSB-based building materials, and start looking at 'James Hardie' (or similar if it exists) siding (with something other than sheets of OSB behind it, even plywood is better, but ideally if it exists a structurally strong(like OSB/plywood is) non-flammable sheet-good) and steel framing - atleast for the exterior walls.
Same for roofs, thankfully the old (easily ignighted) wood-shake shingles are banned in many areas. The most common asphalt shingles will offer some protection, but they will melt (so sparks are fine, but flaming embers may not be), once its through to the roof decking below - most commonly OSB these days you have an ignition source. And once flames are into the open attic space it'll spread throughout the entire attic quickly. Again here ceramic or cement-fiber roof-tiles/shingles already exist, those coupled with a non-flamable roof-decking underneath *and* structural steel roof trusses all but eliminates this issue.
The only other thing you'd have to look into is some way to protect windows & doors (maybe some sort of metal "shutters" - I think I saw that something like that - basically like a mini roolup metal garage door - already exists & some people do use it for hurricanes)
A home/building constructed in such a way, while not 'fireproof' will stand a significant chance of survival.. *BUT* it won't be cheap! Though the long run - insurance discounts (or simply ability to get insurance) is where it pays for itself. And there's also the factor that if its no longer a specialty/custom thing the construction cost comes down.

A building/construction review like this is probably something that needs to be looked at more on a state basis than federal though?

The type of vegetation involved dries out incredibly fast -- within a few days after even the heaviest rains. That means the dry weather over the months before the fire had nothing to do with the fires.

Yep that stuff: grasses in particular... when already in their dormant(ie: dead/dry) stage, will dry out quickly after a rain - basically as Cliff stated, one hot sunny day is all it takes.
But when in their active(ie: green) stage its going to take a few weeks of dry to go fully dormant and then become dry/cured/ripe for burning, so in that respect dry weather over the months before the fire had something to do with the fire (though that said *drought alone* did not, as said vegetation would still be dry/cured for burning even if it had been a normal dry season there.)
And anyone who has seen dry grass/brush/etc burn in person knows just how volatile that stuff is! It takes *very little* to ignite it, and it will burn/spread quickly.. then if you were to add wind you have something thats basically unstoppable.

 

[Matt Zumbrunn]

One thing that sticks out as a huge problem is that in recent years it is absolutely clear that there is a glaring problem concerning the lack of time, $$, and resources spent on basic maintenance and preventive measures that, if done right and given proper attention, would significantly mitigate the extent, and in some case advert completely, disasters, weather/climate-related or otherwise.

Does it have to be said once again about the egregious neglect in California that even basic infrastructure can't be maintained to properly combat wildfires? We saw the problem with water supplies and hydrants from the recent wildfires. How about the fire department budgets and policies themselves? How about decades of poor land and water management? How about the fact that we keep expanding into high fire risk areas, making ignition more likely and giving plain "targets" for wildfires? All of these have *zero* to with weather and climate, yet wildfires keep exclusively getting blamed on climate change from the most of the MSM and politicians every time one occurs. This is disingenuous at best, and criminal at worst, and reeks of agenda-driven policy and towing a line.

I don't want to get to far off topic but local politics play a big part and it stresses me to the max. All of our trucks are older. My brush trucks are the hardest working trucks in the fleet. However they are also the least reliable. We are just entering fire season. I have one that broke down twice, caught fire once, has white smoke from the exhaust, and oil analysis shows it has high levels or iron and aluminum (mind you all this happened in the last year). It also broke down in 2023 and was down for a week. Its 24 yrs old but because it is still relatively low mileage our fire board will not replace it. We also dropped a $5800 engine in our 2000 brush truck back in 2023. The 2000 also has a leaking tank. They don't include us in the budget process, and pass a flat budget every year even though equipment is up 35-40% in the last 4 years. Sorry, sitting here trying to work on a federal grant for a couple new skid units since the family is asleep.