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- May 16, 2019
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On Thursday there were massive wildfires in Mexico extending from TJ to Ensenada, primarily along the coastal zone. I've never seen wild fires spread so fast and I've seen a lot of them. But people in the US don't even know it happened. The fires burned all around the home I live in. It's a community 6 miles south of Rosarito Beach Hotel called Popotla. Most of the homes are upscale and it's not like the barrio's our current president likes people to think Mexicans live in. It's very quiet and very safe.
Anyway my neighbor came knocking at the door saying I needed to move my car from the street where I'm parked on the gravel shoulder. He said wild fires are approaching. I went outside to move my car to the concrete driveway and saw all the smoke. My landlord just shook his head and said stay indoors and close the sliders and windows. I did and then sat on my balcony and watched the fire arrive. It burned all up and down the hills and right up to the houses. It was too smokey so I went indoors. Six hours later it was over. What was interesting is that the scrub brush here is far more fire resistant than in CA. The fire never got particularly hot and simply burned off the dried grass and the foliage of the plants. But now the hillside is still covered with the blackened scrub, but I can tell that with a couple of rains it will simply grow the foliage back.
All the homes are made of concrete. Part of the reason is concrete is cheap, but it's also pest free in terms of termites, etc, better insulated during the summers but most of all fire resistant. All the roofing is Mexican tile which isn't really a ceramic as Americans think of tiles. It's more like light weight concrete, but completely fire resistant. The fires burned right up to the walls and left smoke smudges and ash on the roofs but that's about it.
Very few homes in the area suffered any damage at all. Those that did were made in the American style and fashion to attract Americans. Today I had lunch with one of my neighbors on my balcony and he's from Riverside, CA. We laughed at how Americans could learn a whole lot about how to build REAL homes not the tinder boxes they build and live in. American homes are not built to withstand the ravages of nature. Hell there was no FD intervention of any kind except for a pickup on the highway with FD markings parked on the highway observing. Because the houses are made the way they are and the foliage is what it is, They simply for the most part allowed the fire to burn itself out which it did in less than 48 hours.
Where I live in MX isn't that much different than in San Diego and most of Southern CA in reality. Californians could learn something from the Mexicans. It's about as warm as it gets here in Popotla at about 87 F. I have no AC and the living room is largely windows. So I'm sitting in my master bedroom in the back of the apartment and the thermometer I have reads 77 F so it's very comfortable.
American homes are too lightweight in their structures, not particularly disaster proof from wind, rain and fire. They aren't as pretty as CA homes but they are every bit as functional. If Calif hillsides were seeded with the kind of scrub here in Baja the fires wouldn't burn as hot, last as long and the plants being fire resistant would survive. Because the root system is intact the erosion issue after a fire wouldn't be such a huge problem like it's going to be in CA now. If all homes had tile roofs and fire resistant walls, i.e. like concrete, the structure losses wouldn't be so massive. Mexican are shaking there heads in disbelief at how stupid Americans are because they know Americans will simply rebuild their tinderbox houses and the cycle will continue.
By simply changing the type of foliage on the hillsides, including fire resistant trees and mandating a change in the materials used in construction, the cycle of the magnitude of these disasters could be broken.
BTW there is a lightweight, stronger form of concrete that has been created. But American's refuse to change.
Anyway my neighbor came knocking at the door saying I needed to move my car from the street where I'm parked on the gravel shoulder. He said wild fires are approaching. I went outside to move my car to the concrete driveway and saw all the smoke. My landlord just shook his head and said stay indoors and close the sliders and windows. I did and then sat on my balcony and watched the fire arrive. It burned all up and down the hills and right up to the houses. It was too smokey so I went indoors. Six hours later it was over. What was interesting is that the scrub brush here is far more fire resistant than in CA. The fire never got particularly hot and simply burned off the dried grass and the foliage of the plants. But now the hillside is still covered with the blackened scrub, but I can tell that with a couple of rains it will simply grow the foliage back.
All the homes are made of concrete. Part of the reason is concrete is cheap, but it's also pest free in terms of termites, etc, better insulated during the summers but most of all fire resistant. All the roofing is Mexican tile which isn't really a ceramic as Americans think of tiles. It's more like light weight concrete, but completely fire resistant. The fires burned right up to the walls and left smoke smudges and ash on the roofs but that's about it.
Very few homes in the area suffered any damage at all. Those that did were made in the American style and fashion to attract Americans. Today I had lunch with one of my neighbors on my balcony and he's from Riverside, CA. We laughed at how Americans could learn a whole lot about how to build REAL homes not the tinder boxes they build and live in. American homes are not built to withstand the ravages of nature. Hell there was no FD intervention of any kind except for a pickup on the highway with FD markings parked on the highway observing. Because the houses are made the way they are and the foliage is what it is, They simply for the most part allowed the fire to burn itself out which it did in less than 48 hours.
Where I live in MX isn't that much different than in San Diego and most of Southern CA in reality. Californians could learn something from the Mexicans. It's about as warm as it gets here in Popotla at about 87 F. I have no AC and the living room is largely windows. So I'm sitting in my master bedroom in the back of the apartment and the thermometer I have reads 77 F so it's very comfortable.
American homes are too lightweight in their structures, not particularly disaster proof from wind, rain and fire. They aren't as pretty as CA homes but they are every bit as functional. If Calif hillsides were seeded with the kind of scrub here in Baja the fires wouldn't burn as hot, last as long and the plants being fire resistant would survive. Because the root system is intact the erosion issue after a fire wouldn't be such a huge problem like it's going to be in CA now. If all homes had tile roofs and fire resistant walls, i.e. like concrete, the structure losses wouldn't be so massive. Mexican are shaking there heads in disbelief at how stupid Americans are because they know Americans will simply rebuild their tinderbox houses and the cycle will continue.
By simply changing the type of foliage on the hillsides, including fire resistant trees and mandating a change in the materials used in construction, the cycle of the magnitude of these disasters could be broken.
BTW there is a lightweight, stronger form of concrete that has been created. But American's refuse to change.
