Los Alamos Heightens "Fire Wise" Awareness by Broderick Perkins If you can glean anything from the charred ruins of hundreds of homes destroyed by the Los Alamos, NM fire-that-shouldn't-have-been, it should be a heightened awareness of the need for fire protection at home. While you may think it's possible for a naturally occurring brush fire to spread and engulf your home, you likely don't expect a controlled burn to suddenly leave you homeless. Unfortunately, the threat does exists, and so should your efforts to keep your home as fire safe as possible -- especially in hot, arid forest regions. On May 4, to clear fire hazard brush with a controlled burn, the national park service started a fire in the Bandelier National Monument area outside of Los Alamos. Brisk winds quickly blew it out of control and into Los Alamos. After some 20,000 nearby residents evacuated, the blaze scorched sections of the sprawling Los Alamos National Laboratory and destroyed at least 260 homes. While even a steel-reinforced bunker isn't fire proof, building and fire officials say you can build a level of fire resistance into your home to protect it from a fiery fate -- at least long enough to escape or for firefighters to arrive. The key is combining fire resistant materials with "fire wise" mitigation, design and construction techniques. The materials you use should be manufactured to American Society of Testing and Materials (ASTM) standards and assembled following International Conference of Building Officials' (ICBO) building codes. Consider making these components of your home more fire resistant -- if only when you are conducting home improvements. Roofing Your home's strongest line of defense is a Class A roof. Most fire resistant Class A roofs are made of aluminum, steel, concrete, clay or slate. Such a roof is especially protective in a foliage-borne fire that rains hot embers. Treated wood shake looks good, but provides the least protection in a raging fire that falls from above. Ceiling, Walls, Floors Building codes typically require fire-resistant gypsum wall board in certain locations in a home, including between a garage and the main house. Consider using it in elsewhere, in walls, floors and ceilings to help create a fire barrier. Exteriors Stucco, stone, masonry and other exterior materials are better than wood at preventing fire from intruding into the walls. Metal siding provides some fire protection, but if you don't take measures to reduce the wicking effect, it can allow condensation to develop and deteriorate material behind the siding. Windows, Doors During many California wild fires, the exterior pane of some energy-efficient dual-glazed windows cracked, but the interior pane held. Like roofing materials, doors are also fire-rated. Solid wood doors are stronger than hollow ones. Metal doors are best. Design In California's 1991 Oakland hills fire, flames snaked beneath decks, eaves and crawl spaces. Create barriers by closing in decks built with fire resistant materials and screen attic vents, eaves and crawl spaces to ward off burning embers. Additional systems Fire and building officials say consider installing residential sprinkler systems if you are improving or building homes in fire prone areas. Sprinklers reduce the risk of fire deaths by 75 percent -- when combined with a smoke detector. Mitigation. Fire-safety law requires some homeowners to clear flammable vegetation within 30 feet of a home, both to help stop fire's encroachment and to create a defensible perimeter. Irrigated, mowed turf grass is the best fire resistant vegetation. |
