The answer is obviously "no" since there are other parts of the world that don't live on a hurricane highway nor build houses made from firewood in an area prone to wildfires.
We have cyclones here similar to the hurricanes in the US and usually it just blows over some trees maybe causes a power outage. The absolute worst I have experienced was 3 days without power. I have never seen a house destroyed by a cyclone here.
As for wildfires, they do unfortunately claim a few houses most years.
This solves the fire problem AND the limited access to a public resource that is common in Malibu.
Ideally a permeable surface without any growth, cleared at least 2x a year.
Taleb would have a field day with this one. Broadly, I think a big part of the argument is driven by the assumption that the area will be rebuilt, despite being a known fire risk.
https://youtu.be/5h1H36rdprs?t=1m51s
That would easily jump a 10' fire break.
I live in an area that had a special warning last summer, we had a very very dry summer and there was a period with low humidity and high winds for a few days, it was considered an unusual scenario with extreme fire risk - but nothing happened this time. Now that I'm writing this I'm wondering what I'll do if it feels like an annual occurrence. Another parallel, the power company warned us they might shut off the power to reduce risk but I guess it didn't get that bad.
I live along the Mediterranean sea in France, many wood fires every summer, with wind above 100km/h; never seen so many houses burn like in California even when most of our houses are concrete but with wooden framework.
I'm pretty sure that if houses were built like here (concrete / concrete blocks with terracota tiles on wooden framwork) at lot less would have burnt. Maybe those near the wooded slopes but not in the middle of a neighborhood block.
I suspect the rules for making a defensible house were wrong. For example, I read an article recently that posited that most of the fire was spread by burning embers on the wind, and not by intense heat from nearby flames.
The idea is to look at where embers accumulate and eliminate or fireproof those areas. For example, a low masonry wall a few feet from the house can stop a lot of heavier burning embers from piling up against the house. If you've got a swimming pool, add a pump to it that feeds sprinklers in the yard and on the rooftop.
There are a lot of homes that did not burn - look at them and figure out why they didn't burn.
For a related example, every airplane crash is looked at, and we always discover overlooked vulnerabilities. The tsunami that devastated Japan a few years ago also provided a lot of information about what worked and didn't work.
We're a long way from needing to give up. There's a lot of low hanging fruit.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yZe-TlYxm9g&pp=ygUkaG91c2VzIHR...
especially for this fire, jumping doesnt mean that everything 2 miles down wind also burned down. buildings that far had the opportunity to burn, and if they dud, had the opportunity to burn their neighbors, and another 2 miles down.
i imagine ember density is more interesting than distance?
Ooh, and make a bailout conditional on homeowners (or counties) agreeing to eminent domain.
If insurance wants firebreaks for insurance, that is their choice.
If the city wants buy RE for access, that is between tax payers and the land owners. Cash talks
Are you suggesting we build houses inside concrete cubes with walls 10 m thick?
From what I've read, the houses in LA that did survive were modern or heavily remodeled houses incorporating recent code changes to prevent embers from entering the eaves and suchlike.
It really doesn't help that most of LA was built up in the early to mid 20th century; requiring code updates during remodels can only help so much, because if the cost/change is too much/invasive the homeowners either don't remodel at all or do it without permits, bypassing the more costly safety improvements.
In reality, it is Japanese condos that get gutted periodically or when sold, and it's driven by their real estate tax code.
Japan takes enormous effort to prevent and mitigate natural disasters.
There may have been some truth to it 200 years ago, with the idea that wood was the only economical way to build a house that could last.
I think some of that can be attributed to the fact that buildings are stationary structures that have ample square-footage for embers to land and cause fires, where as trees have less stationary surface area for embers to land, remain and build into fires.
It killed more than 70 people.