Insurance Thieves...

[bzimbelman]

Originally Posted by mlarson

Ben,

An insurance question for you concerning CA fires.

Up here in WI and MN we have a situation that when the deer car accident rates go up too high the insurance companies pressure the state DNR to reduce he herd which we hunters are only to happy to help out with. It lowers claims for the auto insurance Cos and rates for the consumer.

??Why don't the insurance companies in CA pressure the state to clear the underbrush to a managable level so that these annual fires are not so destructive??

I read today that there is 10 - 100 times the amount of acceptable undergrowth that has been allowed to remain because of other pressure groups desire to leave it alone and are against the use of controlled burns to reduce the danger.

Michael,

Let me give you a bit of background about controlled burns. I'm currently the Chief of the local VFD here in my little community which is surrounded by the approximately 3.3 million acre Gila National Forest. As such I'm involved in the planning and execution of many of the controlled burns in this area.

I don't have all of the numbers in front of me, but we have done controlled burns every year for the past four years I've lived here. In 2004, we burned almost 10,000 acres, which was a huge effort. The NF brought in firefighters from WA, OR, MN, CA, and I'm sure other places. All to burn 10,000 acres out of the 3.3 million acres that exist in the NF.

Now, say we do the same 10,000 acres every year, so in 10 years we have burned 100,000 acres, or approximately 3% of the entire forest. That would be a good start, but the reality is that the area we burned in '04 had already recovered by '06 (we didn't have much rain in '05, but '06 and '07 were good rain years).

In fact, this spring when I did some horseback riding up in that area, I noticed that the grass was so thick and strong from the rains the year before that it was probably worse then if they hadn't burned it at all.

Now, I'm not saying don't burn, in fact I like the controlled burns, but it is not the panacea that everyone likes to make it out to be.

Another note, last year we had one of the worst fires in this NF's history, and that is saying alot as Teddy Rosevelt signed the bill creating the NF system and the Gila about a mile from my home. The fire was called the Skates fire, and it didn't get much press because we only had about 150 homes threatened by it, but it was one heck of a fire and it took a concerted effort from all of us to keep those homes safe.

At the same time the Skates fire was going on, we had six other medium to large wildfires going on somewhere in the Gila NF which burned a total of around 85,000 acres. That's about 2.6% of the entire forest. Last week I was driving thru two of the largest burn areas to inspect a house, and I noticed that both of them were almost completely recovered by now.

Now having said all of that, there are things that can be done. One of the most important thing to do is to create a defensable space around your structure(s). The main thing is to clear the vegetation around your structure. With the type of fires we have here, it has been determined that if you have a 30' buffer around your home, then you have a much better chance of having that fire bypass your structure.

Now, we don't have any foen winds around here (The Santa Ana winds are a foen wind), and those things make fires at least 10x if not 100x worse then what we experience, so I don't know what the distances would need to be to make a fire break that help in that case.

Secondly, building homes with more fire retardant materials. In my case, the only exposed surfaces are concrete (stucco), metal (roof) and glass (windows). That's not totally true, The doors are solid wood and I have some ceramic tiles in the doorways. But the fact remains that I and most of my neighbors build their homes to withstand a fire from the outside.

Whenever we have a new person start a home here in the area, I make a point of going out there and meeting with them and explaining that we are a Volunteer FD, as such you get a bunch of old, out of shape, poorly trained men (mostly) coming by to put your fire out. Were actually really good at putting out wildfires, and a couple of us have been called in by the paid FDs to help them get wildfires in their areas under control, but we are never going to be a crack structure fire fighting team, so our residents can either roll the dice, or build a home which is not likely to go up in the case of a wildfire coming thru here.

[Michael Larson]

Brian,

Thanks for your informative post.

Do you (or anyone else) know if the areas devastated this week in CA ever have had controlled burns or removal of underbrush or if any effort has been made to provide sufficient margins around structures to minimize problems from wild fires?

I would think the insurers would be interested in this.

[bzimbelman]

Originally Posted by mlarson

Brian,

Thanks for your informative post.

Do you (or anyone else) know if the areas devastated this week in CA ever have had controlled burns or removal of underbrush or if any effort has been made to provide sufficient margins around structures to minimize problems from wild fires?

I would think the insurers would be interested in this.

I don't personally know about the specific areas that were involved in this fire. I do know a member of the incident command team, he is from here, so I will be talking to him in detail about it when he gets back. He was planned to do some training for us in a few weeks, but I think that's not likely to happen now

I know that they had some significant fires in '04 I believe, not sure if it was the same area or not.

I do know that shortly after the 'Oakland hills' fire, another foen wind driven fire, the local government passed ordinances which required something to be done to make the fires less able to spread. I'm not sure of the specifics, but I know it was a local effort. I have never heard of a state wide effort in CA, doesn't mean there isn't one.

NM will actually pay our home owners if they make a defensable space around their home. You basically call in the state forestry office and they will come out and tell you what needs to be done and give you an estimate of the cost. Then if you do the work, call them back, they come out and give you the $$. Do it yourself and pocket the cash or hire it done, they don't care.

-- bz

[Greg Bell]

Brian, I am glad to hear that someone else is thinking about how we build the house. Many of the homes that burned now burned about 4 years ago. Just think how many could have been saved if they were required to be built with concrete. It is the same here in Florida. If we built our homes with concrete then the hurricanes wouldn't do so much damage.

[Ben L. Garrison]

Originally Posted by mlarson

Ben,

An insurance question for you concerning CA fires.

Up here in WI and MN we have a situation that when the deer car accident rates go up too high the insurance companies pressure the state DNR to reduce he herd which we hunters are only to happy to help out with. It lowers claims for the auto insurance Cos and rates for the consumer.

??Why don't the insurance companies in CA pressure the state to clear the underbrush to a managable level so that these annual fires are not so destructive??

I read today that there is 10 - 100 times the amount of acceptable undergrowth that has been allowed to remain because of other pressure groups desire to leave it alone and are against the use of controlled burns to reduce the danger.

Michael,

You raise a great question. One that I will admit that I'm not qualified to answer. Luckily there are some other people on this message board who have good insight on this topic.

How 'bout them Red Sox?!!?!?!?!?

[klott]

The insurance companies will try to say the fires were an act of God, there no atheist when a natural disaster happens or the government will bail them out. You can bet it will not cost them anything. There are many ways to reduce the damage caused by wildfires, however it would mean sacrifice in some ways and no one wants to give up anything, just take. I bet you a dollar to a dime that if I had the money the movie stars do, I could build a fireproof house. The tree huggers are not going to allow the Three Wing Web foot Spotted Ratbird nest material to be burned in a controlled burn! What were you thinking Michael?

[klott]

Go Rockies!

[klott]

Go Sox!

[cgoyette]

Originally Posted by klott

Go Rockies!

Originally Posted by klott

Go Sox!

FLIP FLOPPER!!!! You politician! LOL

Ken now relax dont go off the deep end and get out your one man assualt pack and go after AIG...forget going postal...Ken's gonna make GOING HOME INSPECTOR a assualt term!

Hang in there brother

Curt

[klott]

"Going Home Inspector" I like that! How about "He went Nachi" and wiped them all out!

[klott]

Hey Curt, I sure would like to take one more good off shore fishing trip! You know to just relieve the stress.

[bzimbelman]

Originally Posted by gbell

Brian, I am glad to hear that someone else is thinking about how we build the house. Many of the homes that burned now burned about 4 years ago. Just think how many could have been saved if they were required to be built with concrete. It is the same here in Florida. If we built our homes with concrete then the hurricanes wouldn't do so much damage.

I would agree that most of the large builders don't use much forward thinking. I was very surprised when I went to FL in '04 for that fun hurricane season ya'll had.

One of the first FEMA inspections I did, was a concrete block home with stucco on the outside. They had no roof damage, or other penetrations, yet had a high water mark at about 6" throughout the house.

Turned out the builder skipped the vapor barrier and those little storms you guys insist on naming can blow water right thru silly little block walls. The wife told me water was flowing down the entire inside of the wall. Never would have imagined it!

If I remember correctly, FEMA had to help almost everyone in the subdivision, now there's some tax dollars at work!

[klott]

However Brian when the water went down, the house was still standing. No?

[klott]

Originally Posted by dvalley

Funny. I had the same thought yesterday.

Insurance companies will be closing their doors over this devastation or involved in lawsuits with homeowners for non-payment...Guaranteed.

That's a prophecy that is sure to come true!

[Ben L. Garrison]

I know nothing about personal lines insurance, i.e homeowners, auto, etc., etc. But what I was told tonight over dinner was that fire is the biggest reason for coverage when it comes to homeowners insurance. Not sure the insurance companies can get out of this one. They will have to pay. That's when homeowners are glad that they paid that premium. Theoretically. Time will tell.

How long will it be before they suspect it's an act of terrosim? Would not surprise me.