As I read various local news articles after the fires, there were a few things that caught my interest. Points #2 and #3 seem to be specific to Yorba Linda.

• Even many homes with concrete roof tiles burned.
• Some fire fighting in a particular neighborhood was hampered by low/no water pressure in hydrants.
• Reverse 911 calls were too late.

I have concrete roof tiles so reading a fire captain mention that homes with concrete roofs also burned was a bit of a wake up call. Apparently the winds were strong enough to drive the embers into attic vents and under the eaves of roofs, so having a fire-resistant roof that could withstand having a burning ember land on it was less protection than expected in this situation. (Well, anytime strong Santa Ana winds blow, I suppose)

Sealing the eaves and putting fine mesh screens in the attic vents might have prevented some of the house fires. I imagine that radiant heat also set their next door neighbors' houses on fire, but I guess the point is that if you can prevent the first house from catching on fire from flying embers, then the radiant heat issue is less of a problem.

According to the water district, flames had destroyed a sensor somewhere which prevented them from detecting the loss of pressure. The fire fighting teams in that instance had to pull back from the hilltop areas to a lower elevation to find hydrants with enough pressure and make their stand there.

The reverse 911 problem seems to have been a human problem. It's not that the system wasn't functioning, it's because no one requested that the system be activated early enough. Someone quoted in one article says that the protocol to activate the system wasn't finalized when the fires hit. Some homes in the Yorba Linda area had already burned by the times the calls went out, and fire fighters had trouble speeding to the fire as panicked residents were told to evacuate at the last minute and were clogging the roads. I don't think my city has adopted a reverse 911 system yet, but this story is a bit worrying. As if often the case, it's the human factor that makes or breaks the system.