Building Smarter

In Urban/Wildland Areas, by Greg Otto

... The center for Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto predicts that the state's population will grow to 37.8 million by 2005, with the greatest concentration being in the eastern San Joaquin Valley and eastern Sacramento regions that interface with wildlands. The fastest growth will therefore be in areas extremely vulnerable to fire, and with a history of using building materials and methods that put new communities at a great risk of destruction.

Fire safety preparation must extend ... to those responsible for planning, designing, developing and maintaining the homes and workplaces in which people function. These include architects and engineers, developers and builders, financial institutions and insurance companies, all parties to the same enterprise though often with vastly different , competing, economic agendas. cost compromises involved in developing new communities traditionally have placed fire safety in urban/wildland areas at a low level of priority. One simple way to elevate this priority and mitigate competing interests is to specify and support the use of cost-competitive building materials for structures that will resist fire even in conflagration proportions.

California has long invited residentially-destructive wildfires because of the predominant use of wood in construction. California Department of Forestry statistics indicate that the 20 largest structural losses from urban/wildland fires since 1923 equal 13,642 buildings, of which 2,755 of these were destroyed predominantly in the Bay Area and Los Angeles Basin prior to 1988.

In all the above cases more than 98% of the destroyed structures were primarily made of lumber. The Solution therefore seems simple: design and build with a fire-resistant material that is cost competitive with wood. I've done so, on many occasions, since 1992.

The material I've used is called Rastra. This stay-in-place concrete forming system has a four-hour fire rating at 2000F and other admirable features as well. The data gathered from Rastra fire endurance tests conducted by Braun Intertec Corporation have set new performance standards for those who are serious about building responsibly in urban/wildland interface developments.