What it takes to build a home that can withstand wildfires

morning that this flame is 1500 degrees Celsius yes that's right an experiment in the future of construction hitting one material against another the result is almost instant to see how Flames come up here the wood block on the right catches fire in a matter of seconds the other one is virtually unscathed so the question is if you live somewhere with a wildfire risk which do you want your house to be made of the one you probably picked uses a ten thousand year old technique so it should be sticky and it should not fall apart by itself so it's really simple it smells like dirt it looks like dirt yes feels like dirt that's because it is dirt mixed with a chemical stabilizer or cement to make it water resistant researchers at the University of California Davis are studying compressed Earth block construction with hope that you can extract the material for free from the site you're building on the idea is that you can rent a machine like this yes to build your house yes so somebody does have to get their hands a little dirty yeah about a minute later the machine produces these and then it's gonna make block out of it strong enough for a two-story building says Dr nitin Kumar and affordable because of the material involved it is not even the fire resistant it is known combustible it's not fire resistant it's fire proof windproof earthquake proof that's a tall order for this brick yes but you're confident in it ah yes yes the idea is still in its infancy but it's part of a growing body of science around building homes that can withstand what climate change is throwing our way to find out more we've come deep into the mountains of Northern California where crews are working to build what they call a fully Wildfire resilient home its design may not be everyone's cup of tea but for those already devastated by disaster safety is first and foremost Vern You're Building these Q cabins these houses you're not saying they're 100 fireproof but sort of right we don't really use that word what we do is we build a structure that is a hundred percent non-combustible so okay so this is all Vern Snead uses steel as the main construction material on his Quonset Huts instead of hammering Nails into wood the house is welded together even the framing avoids conventional materials that can catch fire so this is called Rock on in favor of this and it is a layer of concrete board a layer of insulation and a layer of concrete board and so both sides of this are resistant to to fire so if you were to take a blow torch to this to the steel what would happen you would find that it does not catch on fire none of Snead's Quonset Huts have been tested in an actual Wildfire but steel only melts at very high temperatures and doesn't spread Flames when the house that originally sat here was flattened by a blaze in 2019 a similar Quonset garage on the property was the only structure on the entire Hillside left standing enough evidence for the owners to call Snead days later to start their rebuild a quonset hut being a curve when if the fire is approaching the curve the building is fading away from the fire so that's a real Advantage when the fire is approaching a building to have the building sloping away we don't show an overhang we have an overhang but it's all steel so there is no soffit venting no way for any fire to get into an attic the cost he says to a regular build while being mold and insect free too I mean it sounds like the perfect place to live so why aren't more people building like this yeah this is Northern California number one we have a huge wood industry wood is relatively inexpensive here so it's hard to compete but at the same time what is the cost of a house that you know that burns down and the rebuilding of it a question people in regions at risk of wildfire all over North America are grappling with we're heading now to look at some more ways that people are building fire resilient homes you know Northern California is no stranger to wildfires it has seen several in the last decade that have destroyed communities including the town of paradise a lot of people in the area believe it's a matter of when not if another fire comes through and ravages another town so they're vowing to be prepared Heavenly Father please help us the campfire leveled the town in 2018 killing 85 people and destroying almost 19 000 buildings most of them were older and built before any sort of wildfire standards had been introduced in California today just 10 percent of what burned has been rebuilt but the town now has some of the strictest fire building codes in the U.S the paradise campfire wrecked our world burned my house down took everything from us in a blinkman eye Flames tore through Gary ledbetter's home just 10 days after he and his wife had moved in refusing to ever be a victim again he's taken drastic measures in the new construction on his old site setting another example for communities at risk anything that's a weak point on this envelope of the building is an entry point for a ruthless fire Ledbetter has gone above and beyond the paradise and state regulations for building in a wildfire Zone earning his property a first of its kind designation from the Insurance Institute for business and home safety ibhs spent more than a decade testing materials and Designs against a wall of Embers allowing researchers to create a standard for what they call a wildfire prepared home and I see a sprinkler up there yep I have a sprinkler I have a network of sprinklers on the rooftop this home is built far beyond what's now considered safe the highest standard in fire resistant Roofing and those sprinklers mounted on top vents stopping Embers from getting into the attic a three-layer stucco siding and double pane windows there's also a large amount of space between his house and anything that can catch fire he's even got the smallest details covered see that wrapping around that pipe this is fireproof material and this is what they use on the exhaust pipes of motorcycles that's not a requirement but it all comes back to how much this costs Ledbetter knows not everyone can afford to do all of this he says governments need to ante up to help policy go for policy I guarantee you if the government could say I'll give you this much money if you qualify to replace these windows or place Society do something to make your house more resilient that is cheaper than letting it burn and then losing a whole Township it's cheaper to proactively invest in people's homes so Anita when it comes to government subsidies for homeowners and vulnerable areas where does Canada stand we are really behind in the U.S most western states have some sort of Grant to help people retrofit their houses Canada has next to nothing while many cities have strengthened building codes for new homes most people live in older ones and oftentimes the communities hit hardest by Wildfire are rural with an older population on fixed income and of course it can be very expensive to make the kind of changes that are required words of 30 fire hardening and so there are a lot of calls for government funding to help people do that and if we don't do it soon experts worry the results could be catastrophic what's your fear if we don't do it we're going to lose communities and not just lose communities we'll have a mass casualty event that's what myself and most of my fire colleagues worry about the most years like this if we don't do this in a big way people will will die Ian until anything changes a lot of people will remain at risk I need a bath in our Newsroom here in Vancouver thank you

Channel: CBC News: The National

Views: 31,409

Keywords: wildfires, canada wildfire, wildfire proof home, fire resistance home, paradise california fire, california camp fire, fire resistant building material, rebuilding paradise california, wildfire preparation, fires, fire damage, Anita Bathe, CBC, CBC News, The National, canada wildfires, fire code, home construction, climate adaptation

Id: vqsD8c74vy8

Length: 8min 46sec (526 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 12 2023