To the editor: So, David Steiner’s concrete house is the sole survivor in a destroyed Malibu neighborhood. I discover that predictable, however apparently insurance coverage corporations don’t.
My house is a wholly concrete construction with a dirt-over-concrete roof. Not too long ago our insurance coverage was canceled as a result of we’re in a fireplace zone. True, however they didn’t cancel our neighbor’s late-Nineteen Fifties wood-frame dwelling in the identical zone.
We hear that insurers in California are mandated to think about a house’s fire-resistant parts. It appears you get credit score for screening vents however punished for constructing an primarily fireproof construction.
Sure, California’s pure disasters make it very arduous for insurers. What would it not take to wake them up and get them to truly take a look at the fire-related parts of a home fairly than, as they do now, put properties into classes and deny people who fail to slot in a kind of bins?
Ann Cottrell, San Diego
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To the editor: Listed below are two plain info: First, there’ll at all times be wildfires in California, and second, wooden burns.
When individuals rebuild their properties this time, will they keep away from the usage of wooden and different combustibles? Unlikely except they’re compelled.
Nevertheless it might occur very simply. Native and state ordinances could be the beginning — that might be the easiest way if politics didn’t hold all the pieces tied up in courtroom till it was too late and all of the tinder was in place for the following fireplace.
The almost certainly push to finish the usage of combustibles will come from the insurance coverage trade. By providing deep reductions or just refusing to insure, corporations can save not solely our rebuilding communities, but additionally our forests. They will additionally save themselves from chapter.
Another factor: If you have already got a wooden home in a fire-prone space, stucco it. That’s what saved my Altadena dwelling from the firestorm that leveled my neighborhood.
Steve Huffsteter, Altadena
