To the editor: Whereas there’s a have to improve the constructing codes to extra fire-resistant practices, the sort of tilt-up concrete buildings suggested by one letter writer is just not essentially the reply. These buildings are extra inflexible and would possibly endure extra from earthquakes.
After the Northridge earthquake in 1994, the Seismic Addendum was added to the American Welding Society’s Structural Welding Code to handle the rigidity of steel-frame buildings that fractured within the quake. Wooden-frame buildings can transfer to a level for survivability.
There are practices accessible to scale back the probabilities of embers getting into buildings and inflicting ignition. These can be suggested as a method to scale back a hearth’s severity.
Alan Johnson, Seal Seaside
The author is a retired licensed welding inspector and a former member of the American Welding Society’s committee on structural welding.
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To the editor: It’s not a matter of “if,” however slightly of “when” — and it’s fully predictable.
For those who stay in a fire-prone space, you’ll be able to take all the hearth precautions accessible — brush clearance 100 ft from a construction, irrigation and planting fire-retarding crops, for instance. However “when” remains to be potential at any time.
Why an insurance coverage firm would ever promote insurance policies for these areas is complicated. Why the town or county of Los Angeles or some other related areas enable houses to be in-built these areas is outrageous.
Wooden burns and metal melts, and when you’re fortunate sufficient to have a concrete dwelling with a tile roof, even that sort of construction will final solely so lengthy in an inferno.
Dave Simon, North Hollywood
The author is a panorama architect.
