Architect: How to build houses in fire-confident areas here. Newswaise

Farzana Gandhi, M. Arc.The Associate Professor of Architecture at the New York Institute of Technology is available for interviews/comments. Contact (email protected).

NewsWise – More than 16,200 structures Los Angeles has been destroyed by January Wildfire, California leaders have implemented a $ 2.5 billion wildfire relief package to help the state reconstruction.

In the coming weeks, environmentalists, urban planners and architects will argue about how and where to rebuild communities in high -risk forest fire areas. But these concerns are not limited to Southern California. In the fall of 2024, firefighters suppressed 500 fire in New JerseyAs Blaze also expressed concern in New York and Southern Massachusetts. In fact, 3.3 million Americans The “very high” remains in the census path with the risk of wildfire, while around 15 million live in “relatively high” areas.

Now, Farzana Gandhi, M. Arc.The Associate Professor of the Architecture at the New York Institute of Technology, provides mitigation strategies for California and beyond high -ended areas.

Gandhi, a registered architect in New York and a Leed-recognized professional, urges builders to use fire-resistant materials with specialization in durable design-like plaster-bucket and metal gutters and double instead of wood -Windows for Pandy Tempord Glass. Importantly, she recommends that houses in fire -affected areas be built between them with more than 20 feet, which prevents heat in a house from reaching another building nearby.

“There are several standard with their building code to ensure the life and safety of residents in firefighting areas in California and to protect structures against disastrous forest fire,” says Gandhi. “These include landscaping and flammable brushes on the ground and cleaning the gutters by cleaning the gutters and making a ‘defensive location’ zone around the houses and cleaning the gutters. In addition, the need to pruning the trees back from the roof The plants and bushes should be excluded.

However, many existing, old structures currently do not meet tight building construction requirements for areas of wildfire and require retrofits to bring them to code.

“Code to code is not necessarily added to cost and there is no reason that such preventive measures should not be done. However, it is important to note that even fire-resistant materials also have hours of hours which is resistance, ”Gandhi says.

She warns that these suggested measures for individual homes can only reduce the effect – not to act as a “silly” prevention – on the face of a tremendous fire incident. In addition, she asks cities to invest in ‘smart’ infrastructure systems that work at the neighborhood level to help detect the initial fire. These systems can provide real -time data on fire conditions, including temperature, smoking density and spread of flames, allowing firefighters to make informed decisions during emergency.