Originally Posted By: Susan
What on earth could your average homeowner do? What could a superhuman homeowner do?

Quite a lot, actually. We're not talking about surviving the firebombing of Dresden or Tokyo or the great fire after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Those were firestorms.

Many of the homes that burned in the latest batch of wildfires in Southern California were not overrun by some massive wall of flame that instantly incinerates everything in its path. The house fires often start as tiny embers that the wind blows, up to a mile from the fire, through vents into people's attic spaces or get caught up under the eaves of a roof and start a small spot fire. Unless the small fire is put out, the house eventually catches on fire. You could watch it live on TV during the latest fires--a lone house in the middle of a neighborhood suddenly starts to smoke and eventually starts to burn, and that starts a chain reaction that spreads to the neighboring homes. There might have been plenty of fire fighters around the edge of the fire, but the winds carry the embers right over everyone's heads.

Granted, in those situations where the main fire line passes over your house, it's going to take kahones to stand your ground as the air fills with smoke and gets really hot, but even in that case, most homes will protect their occupants until the fire line passes. Then the occupants need to get back outside and put out any fires.

As background, you can read this series of good articles that the LA Times published last summer. In particular, Part Five: Stay and Fight.

LA Times California wildfire series

And after the latest wildfires, some Southern California authorities were actually publicly debating whether letting residents stay and defend their homes is a viable option. That's a HUGE shift in thinking since it actually puts civillians in harm's way but could potentially save many, many homes that would otherwise burn to the ground.

Again, an LA Times article, Southern California chiefs debate stay-and-defend program.