The most destructive fire in the history of Los Angeles burned for days and nights. Hollywood was destroyed and many stars lost their homes. AccuWeather, a local assessor, has raised the economic cost of the days-long fire to $150 billion.
However, in this "fire of the century", there is a building that has "miraculously" survived, which is a three-storey mansion of David Steiner, a 64-year-old retired executive, on Sunset Boulevard. A few meters
away from the building, the neighbors were burned to the ground, and the building was almost unscathed. The biggest feature of the building is that it is made of reinforced concrete and the roof is made of fireproof materials. The reason why the
Los Angeles fire caused so much damage is closely related to the characteristics of American architecture. Data show that most Americans live in light wood buildings, rather than reinforced concrete buildings, which are more fire-resistant, earthquake-resistant and wind-resistant.
On the surface, the main reason why Americans prefer wooden houses is that they are cheap. The United States is rich in timber resources, the industrial chain of wooden housing is also very mature and cheap, wooden structure building also has the advantages of construction, small amount of work, short construction period and so on.
In the United States, labor costs are much more expensive than building materials, and the shorter the construction period, the lower the cost. Not counting the time of decoration, it only takes 4-8 workers to build a wooden villa in the United States for 1-2 months, while a reinforced concrete building of the same size takes many times as much time and work as a wooden building.
Wooden villa project is also very simple, almost no need for large-scale machinery and professional qualifications, and even their own can "hand rub" a villa. Wooden houses can last 50 or 60 years with good maintenance, and the repair business is as simple as replacing rotten wooden components. Wooden buildings have the characteristics of low cost and short construction cycle, which are acceptable to both ordinary people and developers.
Building concrete houses not only requires a lot of labor and a long construction period, but also requires a lot of large machinery to enter the site, which will bring more noise and dust pollution, and is easy to be complained, so some communities simply do not allow the construction of concrete buildings, or use complex approval processes to limit the enthusiasm of people to build concrete buildings.
For example, according to Los Angeles law, masonry buildings must be reinforced with metal beams to improve the durability of the wall. This often means more material costs as well as more labor expenses.
Americans also believe that wooden houses are more earthquake-resistant than concrete houses. In fact, as long as there are qualified steel frames in concrete and good design, their seismic performance is better than that of wooden houses. Therefore, schools, hospitals, gymnasiums and office buildings in the United States also use reinforced concrete structures. And the loss of these public buildings in this fire is relatively small.
Because reinforced concrete is more expensive to build, the real estate tax in the United States is higher, and the money paid to insurance companies is calculated according to the cost, which will not reduce the premium because the house is more fireproof and stronger. Moreover, in the United States, the fire safety standards of wooden houses are much lower than those of reinforced concrete buildings.
In 2018, the death toll of 1000 residential fires in the United States was 8.5, while the death toll of 1000 fires in Shanghai in 2024 was 5.5. Because most of the buildings in domestic cities are reinforced concrete structures, it is impossible for dozens of square kilometers of fire houses in Los Angeles to happen.
浙公网安备33010802003254号