...in California. Because it's bleeding gigabucks, due to insurance claims from all the recent fires around LA.
The 3 necessary components for fire are: oxygen, fuel, and ignition source. No stopping the presence of oxygen. Ignition sources are present with lightning strikes (among other things). That leaves fuel as the thing that can be controlled. If you can't reduce the fuel load around your dwelling, it doesn't make any sense to live there. I live in a forest that has experienced a tragic wildfire in the past, so I'm in a similar boat (but without the Santa Ana winds). Keeping fuel away from my home is something that I think about a lot -- and ACT ON a lot.
I have a neighbor who does practically nothing to reduce his fuel load. It's his legal right, but I think it's foolish. He's told me he likes to keep his property "undisturbed". It sounds like there's much of the same thinking that drives policy in California.
The combined practice of: (1) put out any fire immediately, and (2) do nothing to reduce fuel load, makes for a bad combination in the long run. It would seem to me that Californians should have figured these things out decades ago and be the experts on fire risk management. What am I missing?
Human nature, sad to say.
They were getting so rich so quickly it didn't matter that they had stupid and unsustainable government practices (not managing fire risk, meddling in insurance, etc).
Many properties have no willing insurer left, and have to participate in a state-funded plan (that many fear is not actually solvent). Many more properties only have one or two insurers left.
State Farm was the only insurer left in the Palisades, and my guess is after the moratorium to cancel policies is up in one year, if they can’t reflect the risk in their premiums to account for this fire, the Palisades will have no insurer left either. And then rebuilding will be impossible.
… the Palisades will have no insurer left either. And then rebuilding will be impossible.
People should rebuild where they want as much as they want, so long as they’re willing to accept the financial risk to do so (I.E. higher premiums that reflect the risk… which may be 10x higher, who knows! A lot of these Palisades home owners could, and would, pay for that risk, if only the law would let an insurer charge them for that)
State law does not let that happen, and all the risk is therefore subsidized by everyone else or not offered at all. Both worse outcomes!
If everybody else has very flammable houses then the fire is going to spread and cause a ton of damage to _not houses_. The state really does need to clamp down on people using private land to cause public problems (like lack of water pressure in fire hydrants).
I'm not sure that's the correct take-away. I think you had in correct in the second sentence.
> Do not rebuild in the exact same place, in the exact same way
If your area is a fire-prone, then yes I think you should be allowed to build there. However, your house better have taken into account fire. Whether it means you can't build houses within an acre of another or it has to be all stone, idk let qualified people figure out the requirements. But eventually everywhere in the US will have been hit by a natural disaster and the rule can't be you can't re-build, it just needs to be you need to account for what is likely to happen.
As to flooding, I don't know the specifics but if instead of rebuilding the same you put the house on stilts so just the staircase floods out every couple of years I think it's fine.