In November 2018, California’s deadliest and most destructive wildfire destroyed nearly 20,000 buildings and homes. One home that survived Camp Fire, however, offers valuable lessons on how to build homes that are more resistant to natural disasters.
The house was built from a concrete building material called Logix, which is a type of insulated concrete form. The Styrofoam molds stack on top of each other, metal supports go inside, and the mold is filled with concrete that forms the outer structure of the home.
Pointing to a charred spot on the home’s concrete wall, Kent Yonker, director of Building Fire Safe California, tells KRCR News that “if it had been a wood house, that’s where it would have burned, and the house would be lost.”
In addition to its concrete walls, the home was also protected by non-combustible landscaping materials and a metal wall that shielded it from flying embers, Yonker says.
Yonker adds that Logix concrete form construction costs about the same as other building materials required in fire-prone regions.
