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Wildfire areas get influx of residents
Seems like there are a lot of stories like this in the news lately. The villages in Alaska, located by the government with little local knowledge or concern for the future. The floods in the midwest, in the same areas that flooded in 1992. New levees were supposed to "fix" that problem, and of course the residents are blaming the government, the engineers, etc.
It's unsustainable, and it's going to be even more unsustainable when peak oil really starts to bite.
The craze, building in forest hillside, fragments the forest. And unlike harvest operations, there's no regrowth, just roads and homes and shrubberies. The homes are a liability in fighting wildfires by draining resources, and also by igniting them. These houses are "springing up like wildfire"-couldn't resist. Two years back we had a racing 350 ac blaze that hit 5 homes, started by one of the new residents burning their household garbage in a barrel. In late July.
I don't know enough about the property insurance business, so I'm not sure about this, I could be entirely wrong on this one. However, to me it looks like a market failure -- if insurance companies were to rate these properties according to the real site-specific risks, my guess is that insurance would be either unobtainable or so expensive as to prohibit the vast majority of these homes from being built.
I cannot understand why the insurance industry is so anxious to underwrite health insurance on the basis of the individual insured's health, but when it comes to property is perfectly happy with pooled risk. Individuals often cannot help it if they have health problems, but no one HAS to live in a high-risk location. Why should those of us that choose to live in lower-risk locations have to subsidize the riskier with our insurance premiums?
One more example of a US economy that has things bass-ackwards.
We're heading that way. I think eventually, market forces will rule. Right now, governments are stepping in to insure the uninsurable (see Florida). And there's always FEMA, in case of major disaster.
But they won't be able to afford to keep doing that.
The problem may be that people build homes appropriate for Cleveland in California. If the state building codes required adobe walls and metal roofs then wildfires wouldn't be a big deal. Using flammable materials out west is insane especially when adobe is dirt cheap.
It's not design, its placement. And tho adobe may work in parts of southwest, it's not for all the west. Expensive in many parts. Cheapest is trailer, or woodframe, maybe a metal roof. But it's massive earth moving to site it-sorry, toto no wheelbarrows here-a four by four to get there, drilling to china for water and commuting 50 miles to stay. When the fire does roll thru, you need an air tactical command to fight it. Along with a couple firefighters in a box canyon.
Actually, solid stone or slipform walls (using stones collected onsite or nearby) under that metal or a tile roof would be the ideal building envelope for those mountainside sites - pretty much 100% fireproof. People have put such up with their own labor, but it would be pretty expensive to pay builders to do it.
I don't care if Helen and Scot Nearing built it themselves-its placement. And at least the early slipformers sited their home near water, on moderate ground, with the idea of producing some food.
doug, one of the things that I've noted on my (too) infrequent trips to MT is that the old homesteads tend to be located in draws, near a water source and a few shade trees. In contrast, you see many modern homes plopped down out in the open with no shade and no water. As I understand it, having a water tanker deliver water to the house is not that uncommon -- particulary in the case of vacation homes. As you point, it takes a whole lot of "outside support" to maintain one of these places. If Jim Kunstler thinks the suburbs of the humid East and Midwest have no future, he ought to see these places that you are talking about.
That is something Lester Brown notes. He recommends buying property in the center of old cities. People settled the best areas first, as far as water, shelter, soil, etc. go. Now these areas are often low-income neighborhoods in fading cities. Property is relatively cheap, and if you get together with like-minded friends and family, you can create your own eco-minded neighborhood.
In contrast, modern homes are often built in areas with not enough water or shelter (build on top of hilltops, say, for the "view," when in the old days, the house would be built in the lee of the hill, not on top of it). The topsoil is scraped off and sold to farmers or Home Depot before building starts. Never mind the transportation issues...
I'm in an 1830 Cape, set into the landscape exactly as you've described, the lee side of the hill, which also happens to face due south for maximum solar exposure. The cold winds out of the north west and storms from the Nor'east are lessened this way too.
They also built their chimneys in the center of the house, which with our wood stove provides a large mass of retained heat. In so many ways and respects this old home is a thing of beauty compared to the cheap but expensive junk built of late.
As for good soil, our bottom land here between two long ridges is amazingly fine compared to most of the sandy soil out here on the Cape. I go to sleep each night offering thanks to my blessings here.
But the mosquitoes can be a real bitch for a spell.
you tellin' me that these three car garage liet motif suburban hovels are not classic design ?
I would definately wait.These places are going to get nastier first. At some point you'll be able to buy the whole place before/if it becomes desirable.
Matt
Don't forget the wind. Those draw locations afford other types of shelter. X years ago, I watched a well to do local perch his McMansion on the very edge of a large coule. He lasted 2 years, before selling out and building a large home in town. The wind drove him, and esp his wife, bonkers. You just don't realize it from initial site visits. It's all view and upfront cost.
Water hauling is a thriving business.
Thinking of ol Helen and Scot in my post above-we're about same. Their objective after the depression was not working all day every day. They wanted 4 hours for themselves, would only spend 4 hours in work-build house, grow food, cut firewood, etc. Modern folks live on about 4 hours-four for yourself, about 4 for fed, local, SS, state, property, sales tax. Times I think they cut a better deal.
"September is like a quiet day after a whole week of wind. I mean real wind that blows dirt into your eyes and hair and between your teeth and roars in your ears long after you've gone inside."
Milred Walker, Winter Wheat.
Gee whiz, you can't do that. It wouldn't be FAIR!
You already know the deal. People in this country have a right to live under water, next to rivers, on cliffs, on top of faultlines, and surrounded by Duraflame logs. And of course, it's the government and insurance company's responsibility to pay for it all.
After all, what's the alternative? Admit we're stupid? That might work, but as I always tell my friends, "Idiots don't know their idiots."
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go get a couple barrels of diesel for my motorhome while there are still barrels to get. (See previous paragraph)
What a great visual... I think my next fence will be a Duraflame split-rail.
Thanks for the laugh!
Duraflame split rail fence around a straw bale house with split wood shingle roof. Sounds like the perfect choice for a semi-arid mountainside woodland!
I appreciate the humor, but I have one quibble.
This, according to the Australian government.
So the moral is, don't forget the render.
Incidentally, I grew up in a Southern Californian neighborhood with wood-shingled houses. I've spent more than one afternoon on the roof with a hose, watching the flames get closer. How stupid can a developer be?
The developer wasnt stupid enough to actually live in it though. He just made a buck since no one seemed to perform due diligence.
Fine Homebuilding carried an article on sprinkler systems, and also discussed installing them on roofs, with a standpipe at groundlevel. In case of threat the garden hose goes from faucet to standpipe. With no standing water in the sprinkler system no danger of freezin breakage either.
New York apparently requires sprinklers in new residential construction.
Insurance companies should do some research. They are clever enough when it comes to anything involving health coverage. Clever in how to get out of paying or keeping rates high.
One way to bypass that is to pay off the mortgage (for those who can) and cancel your hazard insurance.
And All-State is bailing out:
Allstate to stop insuring Calif. homes
In Southern California urban and suburban sprawl of this sort continues to be subsidized by State and local government through maintenance of fire/flood protection (and typically utility and road inftrastructure too -special districts and fees not withstanding). Money, in the form of personnel and equipment, always seems to be available to fight wildlfire - no matter how costly such efforts become. I suspect that these subsidies help keep insurance costs down (or simply available) in areas that otherwise would likely be avoided by the insurance industry. So we continue to see development snake its way into remote canyons and ridge-tops surrounded by chaparral. I suppose at some point our fearless leaders will find that tax-base growth no longer pays for the spiraling costs of supporting such sprawl. What with energy and materiel costs going through the roof (and higher interest rates) maybe that time is approaching. But I've been watching this mess unfold for 40 years so I'm not holding my breath.
As far as those Alaskan villages go, there used to be very little if any infrastructure, and the people moved around to different sites anyway, so changes in sea level would not have been a big deal. Now, using the same traditional sites, but built up with fixed infrastructure, there is a problem.