Fire watch

[adam2]

The Greek fires continue to spread.

The population are becoming very critical of the Greek governments response to the fires. Governments have fallen over lesser problems.
The firefighting response does look inadequate.
Fighting a forest fire does not need high technology, but does need a lot of water, a lot of man power, and a lot of pumps and fire hose.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-58152324

[kenneal - lagger]

Greek government services have recently been stripped bare at the insistence of the EU and the IMF as the Greek government had been spending too much money. For anyone, especially in the EU, to express surprise at a lack of service now is a bit disingenuous.

With widespread fires what services there are are bound to be overstretched especially if they are stretched across the mainland and several small islands. And a fire surrounding Athens is going to get more attention than a small island.

[adam2]

Algeria is also suffering badly from forest fires, with dozens of lives lost.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-58165169

[emordnilap]

Siberia

[kenneal - lagger]

I pointed out to an English friend who lives and works in Greece in the tourist industry the irony of Greece suffering catastrophic fires caused by climate change induced heat when that country depends on people flying in from all over the world in climate change inducing airplanes for its living. We will all have to find a new way of doing things in the future, tourist countries especially.

[BritDownUnder]

An interesting article about Australia's bushfires at the start of 2020 releasing more CO2 than Australia produced through 'human activities' . However some CO2 was taken up by algal blooms caused by trace metals in the bushfire smoke falling on the sea. Whether it made these fires carbon neutral I have no idea.

[adam2]

Severe fires in Colorado with thousands evacuated and many buildings destroyed. Outside of the main risk season.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-59837697

Unusually dry and windy weather is blamed.

[BritDownUnder]

I was surprised how readily the suburban housing development burnt, particularly as it seems to have no natural vegetation to assist with the burning. The closeness of the houses to each other coupled with high winds and wooden construction seems to have allowed the fire to spread from house to house. There is something to be said for brick walls and tiled roofs I suppose.

[kenneal - lagger]

I have always been amazed when I see pictures of American housing developments. The size of the houses relative to the plots in a country of the size of the US seems really stingey to me. This wonder is compounded by the fact that they are made entirely of wood!

It wouldn't be allowed in the UK as a fireproof cladding would be required with such a close spacing and there would also be a restriction on the size of windows to limit the amount of radiation in case of fire.

[clv101]

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/01 ... storm.html

Extraordinary situation.

[BritDownUnder]

I could not see a video that shows the fires spreading from house to house. I expect the insurance companies would be very interested in if there are any videos. Legally could you sue the owner of the neighbouring property if it spread from their house to yours? I would have thought in America it should be possible.

In Australia they say a fire gets into a house via the roof space from materials, dry leaves, in the gutters. I put a mesh over all gutters to stop just such a thing happening and also closed the space between the metal roof and the gutters by of all things tin foil.

From a look at the debris, except the basement walls, everything in those houses is made of wood.

[PS_RalphW]

It is very obvious in that video that every single house in most blocks were completely consumed, whereas many trees only a few metres from the front or rear of the buildings were relatively intact. This was true for all orientations of the the blocks, so wind direction was not the primary cause of the fire spread. It is clear that the fire resistance of the buildings to fires in their immediate neighbouring houses was almost zero.

[kenneal - lagger]

With houses that far apart using flammable cladding, or siding as Americans call it, the radiation from one house on fire would be hot enough to set the cladding of the one next door on fire. The fire would progress along the road from one house to the next. Only a continuous soaking of the adjacent house would stop it catching fire.

[adam2]

Agreed, flammable construction as is popular in some places can spread fire by radiated heat, with winds that spread burning embers being an extra risk.

Vehicles are often flammable and contain flammable fuel, many houses have several.

New construction should in my view be fire resisting, which in practice means brick or concrete. If I lived in such an area I would want my own fire fighting arrangements. As a minimum, a swimming pool, an engine driven fire pump, suction hose, and enough delivery hose to reach any part of the property. No reliance should be placed upon the public electricity supply, nor on mains water supplies.

[BritDownUnder]

I could only see one house that looked like it had non flammable roofing tiles that were left in the embers. Maybe most of the rest just have those roofing felt based shingles which being oil based burn quite well. It does seem that the US has some terrible house construction as I think it is very rare for a (detached) house fire in the UK to spread to the neighbouring house.
I could not find too much coverage of the houses burning. It looks like the authorities over there evacuate people and the houses are left to burn. perhaps if people stayed and defended their houses with even a hose pipe and petrol powered pump some difference would be made.
I seem to recall that annoying RGR poster from a few years ago lived in Denver. Here's hoping.

From a room surveillance camera video I found taken during the Fort McMurray fires, remember them, the fire got into the house by shattering the ground floor windows and then burning the room that way.