8 alarm fire near my 'hood

Matthew

Matthew

Touchdown! Greaser!
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kojc, kixd, k34
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Matthew
A little N/E of KOJC this afternoon an apartment complex under construction went up. Hot, dry wind blew embers into a nearby subdivision started a lot of roof fires.

http://www.kmbc.com/article/fire-rips-through-overland-park-apartment-complex/9158681

I watched the news chopper and the smoke, but from my vantage point this afternoon I wasn't able to see the flames.

A buddy sent me this picture, he works close to the site:
 

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For decades the area subdivisions, maybe even the suburb itself, required shake shingles for looks. Sometime in the last 20 years or so they pulled that requirement but a lot of houses still have them. That news video seems to show the houses with shake shingles catching fire and the houses with composite getting by with no damage.
 
Wow, intense flames. They should call shake shingles "kindling." A ton of homes had them where I grew up in Yorba Linda, CA, but a lot of them have been replaced with composite stuff now. A while back we had a big fire in Chino Hills, where the embers were floating for as far as half-mile and lighting random homes on fire. The sort of lottery you don't want to win.
 
I hate those stick-built multi-story apartment buildings. I can't believe code even allows this. We had one of those go up in flames 3 years ago. A cigarette put out in a flower pot is all it took, 3 hrs later all that was left was a pile of ash. My current apartment is in a steel&concrete structure.
 
Yep. Shake roof are horrible. I used to live along the Santa Ana riverbed in Norco, CA. The riverbed was full of overgrowth, cane/bamboo, bushes etc. Every few years a fire would come in and burn it out. IF you had a shake roof and the fire was near, you probably had your house burn down. fire in river bottom by us one year burned down 2 or 3 houses a block down, all shake. Everyone else just had smoke in their eyes and had to park down the block while the fire/police had roads blocked.

As to high rise wooden structures, I was at a precast concrete show last fall. They are going to war against these 3-4-5 stories apt and commercial buildings over the fire issues. The wooden building guys say fire isnt an issue, we have sprinklers. But tons of these burn up in construction before sprinklers are in. I wouldnt want to live in one. What if the water pressure goes down, instant kindling pile.
 
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